The Favorite
by QueenPotatos
Summary: Haru has always been the Prince's favorite, but his comfortable life is ought to change when Rin turns 20 and needs to find a Bride to become the King - will it really change the relation they've had for so long ? Arabian Au fic! Rin/Haru
1. I

_Hi! This is my new multi chapter rinharu fic! Arabian AU! (I miss splash free! too much okay)_

_Anyway it was supposed to be a long one shot but I decided to cut it into small chapter instead. Here we go !_

* * *

_'Have you heard the news?'_

_'The Prince is turning 20 next month!'_

_'He'll be old enough to become the new King.'_

_'At last, it's been so long since his Father passed away.'_

_'But he needs to find a Bride before he can rule the Kingdom.'_

_'Will he find a Bride in time?'_

_'Some says he has made his choice already!'_

_'Some have already seen her! She is said to be the prettiest creature that had walked upon the Earth.'_

_'Oh!'_

_'I can't wait to see her!'_

_'Long live the Prince.'_

_'Long live the Bride.'_

_'Long live the King!'_

_._

From the corner of his eyes, Haru watches the old servants preparing dinner for the royal family. He doesn't have to pay attention to see that as they spoke most of their glances were leering towards his direction. And yet they all salute him as he passes by, their old and hurt backs bending in half when he walks in front of them. Being the Prince's Favorite has quite its advantage in such a place where hierarchy reigns – and considering where he was from, Haru couldn't have reached a higher rank, even in his craziest dreams.

The Prince was part of those kinds of people who hypnotizes you with a blink of an eye. He had that dragging power, that magnetism that makes every pair of eyes look at him every time he enters a place – every ones but Haru's, because he certainly doesn't need to see him to know that the Prince was looking at him, and only at him.

Who was this new bride to think she could overthrow him that easily?

It was only rumor, and thus Haru chooses to ignore it, to ignore them talking – and he gets back to his personal apartment; and as he did his footsteps were closely watched by every other courtesan of the Palace.

* * *

**The Favorite - Chapter One**

* * *

When Haru has been called, after a week of complete silence from his Prince, he honestly wasn't expecting this. The door leading to his Highness personal room was guarded by his two most loyal soldiers. They salute as soon as he came into view and Haru knocks on the door. Another servant opens him the door and quickly closes it behind him – in a vain attempt to hide the horny and dirty noises coming from inside the heated room.

Rin – it was the Prince's first name, and the way Haru addresses to him when they were alone, always – is having his way with a girl Haru hasn't seen before. The red silky curtains, embroidered with gold and small jewels surrounding his King sized bed were barely hiding the poor girl's body. He didn't even get completely naked; Rin has just lifted his robe and is just finishing to roughly fuck her in front of a small assembly.

It maybe wasn't meant to be personal but Haru takes this like an affront. Still, he watches them, watches their bodies move and join, he listens to their moans and short breathings – he can even guess that Rin is simulating, and the fact only makes him smile internally – and then, when he sees the way Rin's hands grasp on the woman's hips he knows he is about to come. His instincts doesn't fail him; soon after the Prince jerks his hips quickly a couple of times and drops the poor girl's body on the bed, as if she were a mere object he owns.

A mere belongings, just as Haru is.

"Sorry," he says, his voice not even slightly aroused, "it took a little bit longer than expected." Rin looks directly at his bright blue eyes but Haru doesn't let anything betray his inner thoughts. He knows the prince is playing with him – he just doesn't quite get why for the time being.

"If you had trouble getting hard again you should have called me sooner," he retorted, cheekily.

Rin arranges his hair and clothes, not minding the cutting remark, and with a single motion of his hand he dismisses both the girl and the servant who had been inside, leaving the two of them alone for the first time in ages.

At last, the Prince starts to miss him. Of course he must. They haven't touched in weeks – well, it has only been a week, seven days and seven nights, but it feels like an eternity because it had never happened before and Haru had been living here in the Palace for five long years now. He tries to remain stoic as Rin approaches him like a feline, but inside his heart is starting to pound vigorously and he can feel his fingers aching to touch the pearly, soft skin of the Prince again.

"Who was she?" he asks first, because he is quite curious about it – and not because he feels jealous, not at all, not when he had seen that Rin hadn't even enjoyed it.

"A new girl my mother bought me, I guess." Rin changes his course and heads towards a small table where a couple of long glasses and a bottle of date liquor are set. He pours himself a drink, for him and him only. He drinks it, looking expectantly at Haru while he does so, challenging him – but what for exactly?

"I hope she didn't pay much for it. She wasn't worth the shot."

"Oh, you were able to tell. I'm glad." His glass is now empty; he puts it back on the table and walks back to Haru, his robes weeping the floor.

"You're glad you didn't have a great orgasm?"

"Ah ah! No no, not that Haru, damn you're so blunt sometimes; I guess you haven't changed one bit." Rin laughs a bit and sits on his bed, spreading the curtains and giving Haru the sight of the printed body shape left by the new courtesan in the white sheets. "How have you been lately? It's been a while."

"Whose fault is it?" Haru walks towards the bed but the Prince stops him.

"Stay against the wall," he orders, and Haru obeys because he has no other choice – Rin owns him, he owns his body, his belongings and he owns his life; it not like he can protest against him whenever he wants to. He wonders if they are going to do it against the wall though; in hindsight it's not something he would mind, a little bit of roughness when it has been such a long time won't displease him in the least.

"You didn't answer my question, Haru."

"You didn't answer mine as well."

"Hn," Rin chuckles, "You talked as if we were equals."

"You told me we were, at least when there is just the both of us; you told me we were just men."

Haru moves of the place he was grounded, insolence and confidence running through his veins, and as soon as his back leaves the wall Rin sends him a death glare. "I told you not to move." He warns him, and by the sound of his voice it's now crystal clear that even if they're very alone in Rin's room, the Prince doesn't see him as his equal at all. Haru feels hurt, and fights not to show his disillusion too much. After all, it's maybe just a new sadomasochist game the Prince wants to play; he's probably hurting him on purpose and wants him mad just to fuck him better at night.

"Your answer." He urges him, harshly.

Haru holds his hard glance. He can't lie to the Prince, that's part of the deal; but Haru is clever and never misses an opportunity to be mischievous instead of honest. "Not bad. Could have been better but I'm definitely not someone you need to be sorry for. What about you, my Prince?"

"I've been busy."

"Yeah I had the chance to witness that just a couple of minutes ago."

If these words had been from anyone else Rin will have asked for their heads but because it's him, because it's Haru who speaks to him, he only gets slightly mad and jumps out of his comfortable seat to grasp Haru's tunic and to crush him harder against the wall. Haru can't help but shivers at the closeness of their bodies – and the Prince seems to notice; he grins.

"Have you missed me, by any chance?"

Oh, he hates when he is like that, he hates when he can read him so well; as if possessing him wasn't enough already Rin has to own in his mind as well. "I could have been better." He repeats, hoping it will lure Rin enough so he could let him go and to put some space between them.

Rin's body is what can be called a perfect work of art. His skin is softer than the softest silk Haru has slept in, whiter than all the milked bath he had luxuriated in, his eyes and hair are red like the falling sun reflecting on the Oasis at the Palace's feet and yet Haru can't touch him. It's forbidden, and considered as a sacrilege to touch the Prince when he hadn't touched you first. It's the same as for speaking to him – no one in the Palace with a lower rank than him could talk to the Prince. The only one who could initiate a conversation with him was the member of his family – his mother and his sister only.

Rin runs his lips against the skin of Haru's cheek. He only brushes by, never kissing never biting, never touching too much; it's just enough to literally make him ache for more, and Haru whines. He feels Rin smile, as he reaches his ears. If only he could kiss him already, if only Rin could give him the permission to kiss him...

But Haru won't beg. Not in Rin's wildest dreams.

"Mh, maybe it's not enough yet..."Rin mutters loud enough just for Haru to hear. Enough for what, exactly, Haru will never know because Rin releases his grip on his collar and leaves the room. He can only hear the slam of the room's door; and soon after, another soldier enters to guard the room.

Haru slides against the wall, his eyes clouded with unsatisfied lust and his heart aching for what seems to be a one-sided adoration. He even feels tight in his pants now; the day couldn't have started in a worse way than this.

* * *

"Haru! You're back! How was-"

Nagisa is a younger courtesan who came here, approximately at the same time as Haru. They became friends rather quickly and when Rin had given him the luxury to own a room and a couple of servants to take care of his place, Nagisa had been his first choice - he was his female companion as he liked to be called.

"Don't want to talk about it." Haru says weakly. It doesn't prevent Nagisa from coming closer and patting him on the back; but in a way even if he wouldn't have agreed if Nagisa had asked to do so, he feels better, it feels warmer where Nagisa had touched him.

"Anyway," Nagisa says after they ate, "You've got a new assignment while you were away."

This time it's gardening. Another thrilling activity that doesn't include being with Rin or next to him or inside him; and he was really tired of playing hide and seek with him. More than tired. If it was only not being able do be with Rin, Haru wouldn't mind that much but lately, with the rumors concerning an incoming marriage and all, people were glaring at him as if he was a pestiferous, as is he was something noxious and unwanted in the Palace because he would stain the Prince and his holy marriage.

And now that he wasn't even called to the Prince's room anymore, people were laughing at him. They didn't even hide their grin when he walked down the alley to the common bathroom, or when he promenaded with Nagisa on sunny days. It was as if slowly every single aspect of his life was slowly crumbling. Everything he had worked so hard on...

Haru cuts the wrong plants. A soldier passing by hits him with his lance. "Careful you slut. Next time the Prince will cut your head if you mess up with his garden."

Not so long ago Haru would have laughed, he would have been sassy and would have insulted the soldier just to get Rin here and to flirt with him in front of the man who had dared to touch him, and the soldier would have been fired, or even worse. But now with all of what was happening Haru judges that it isn't the best time to test his luck - he blows his head, barely pronounces '_Yes Sir_' and concentrates more on the right stem to cut.

* * *

As the night falls on the Palace Haru stands outside his door, looking at the moon from the small terrace, listening to the crickets singing in the grass. They used to do that a lot, in the past, when Rin was much younger and carefree, when he didn't have the weight of the whole Nation upon his shoulders. Times are changing. He can feel it, it's in the air, in the people's glare, in the way Rin walks towards him that night.

Something irreversible is about to happen and Haru can't do anything but watch his fate being torn.

"I heard you cut one of my white camellia."

Haru looks at Rin's feet; it's still to hard to glance at his eyes. "It reminded me of your dick, so I cut it out."

Of course it's a lie, and Rin just laughs at his bad joke. "You're that mad at me?"

"I didn't think it was that obvious. I am very sorry my Prince, I'll be more careful next time." He replied, his voice as monotonous as it can be.

"Next time don't cut my '_precious flower_' then."

"When will there be a next time?"

"Not any time soon I'm afraid; I need my flowers to grow back before you'll be around there - I don't want you to ruin years of good work just because you don't like my dick."

"Rin!" Haru shouts, and it's now clear that he is not talking about gardening anymore.

He would hate to beg. His voice has come out so desperately, he hopes Rin won't make good use of it, or laugh at him like any other people here. Was it all a joke, all these years? Was it really just for fun? Why nobody warn him that after the Prince would turn 20 his life will have no more meaning? It's just crazy. He could have bet he'd seen love in Rin's eyes, a small week ago and now...now, there is nothing left for him.

"Eight days, seven nights; hasn't it?" Rin says as he walks dangerously close to where Haru stands.

"So you're counting too."

Rin cocks him a smile. He looks so gorgeous. So evil and terribly gorgeous. "I made a bet. That's why I'm counting."

"You bet on how much time you can keep your hands off of me? It's gross, you know."

Rin laughs louder, or does he stand really close to him now? Haru finds out when he finally has the courage to look at him in the eyes. The night makes his pupils go wide. It has probably nothing to do with the fact that he might want him here and now as much Haru wants and needs him.

"You're wrong." He murmurs seductively, "We've bet on how much time you'll need to beg for me to touch you or to break into my room at night to ravish me."

Haru can feel his breath on his cheek, just where he had run his lips this morning. God, does he have any idea of how much he affects him? Of how all of this is just another kind of torture to him? Because no one else but Rin knows better about Haru, and about his pride - he had been one of the first victims of it, and to be frankly honest Haru had been quite a turbulent courtesan; he is rather lucky to be still alive - and it's just another one of his provocation, of his games, a way to show him who really has the power.

Haru thought these times when Rin needed to get reassured were behind them. He is surprisingly sad to find out he's wrong about it.

"It's really disgusting. You're disgusting. There is no way I'd beg for a swine like you."

"We'll see. I haven't lost yet - I knew how stubborn you can be after all."

And with those words, the Prince walks away.

Haru doesn't want to say goodbye. Not yet. He doesn't want to spent a eighth night without feeling him - but he will certainly not surrender either. Rin might own him, but there are some things that will stay forever out of his reach.

"By the way one of your soldiers hit me on the top of my hand." Rin stops his steps. Haru shows him the bruise, and fakes a whine when Rin presses his finger on. "It hurts terribly. I'm sure that if you kiss it though it will be more tolerable and-"

"Your sly tricks won't work on me Haru," Rin lets his hand fall back on his side. "I know them all. But thank you for letting me know that you're that much on edge."

Haru frowns deeply. He hates it when Rin talks down to him.

"The air is starting to get chilly. Go back inside your apartment, Haru; it's an order - it didn't give you a bed to watch you get a cold."

Rin's long, greyish cape hides the sight of his muscular back as Haru stares at him walking away. He still feels a little bit frustrated - eight days and eight nights; his mind tries to forget but his body can't - but at least he knows now that it's not because of a so called future wife, or a future wedding that has never been officially announced. He would have told him if it was the case. He would have been the first one to know.

Haru gains his apartment as soon as Rin's silhouette disappears from his view. Nagisa is already sleeping in the little room he occupies next to his. Haru sighs and takes off his white, lined robe before getting under the sheets of his comfortable bed.

Rin had been right earlier, it was much warmer inside.

Sleep takes him quickly to a land where Rin isn't a Prince and where he isn't a slave; a place where they are only men and only love each other, in the simplest way possible.


	2. II

_...What?_

_._

The violent impact of the message he had just been delivered with makes Haru almost lose his balance. The piece of fabric he was holding falls on the floor before he has time to arrange his hair with it. Nagisa is gasping in utter surprise as well; it's not just him who finds the news a difficult one to swallow - Haru feels relieved for a short moment, it's more likely to be a bad joke then.

"It can't be. You must have mistaken me for someone else." Haru says harshly to the man standing in his apartment; and he picks up his favorite blue shawl from the floor before turning his back to the royal messenger.

"I'm afraid I'm not." The guard said, impassibly; and his attitude annoys Haru even more, "The Prince himself gave me this order. He told me to give this message to no one but his Favorite."

Haru freezes again. He spins so fast on his heels to face the guard again that in the process he almost sprains his ankle. "What?" His breath is short, and his eyes widened; this silly joke is getting more ridiculous as the man in his armor spits out some more words.

"As I already said, you were assigned to escort our Prince's guest this evening, and to spend the night with him in order to offer him your service;" The venomous words make Haru's hackles rise. "The Prince added that you should be honored to have such privilege, and that his honorable friend had even asked for your company personally on his own recommendation-"

"Rin would have never done that..." Haru whispers, mostly to himself; but the words ring out too loud in the circular room nevertheless. Before he had time to realize he had voiced his thoughts aloud to a stranger, the damage is already done. No one is allowed to speak the Prince's name; not even mere guards like the one in front of him know - it because it's a well-kept secret, it's a gift only revealed to the ones who truly deserve it. The messenger stands there bemused, probably because of the sudden burst of rage and the rudeness of a courtesan's speech. Haru is glad that Nagisa still is in his right mind, and drags the man out of his room before the situation goes downhill from here.

"What are you going to do?" the blonde asks when the tension has fallen down. He looks really concerned, and as the last thing Haru wants to do is to make him even sadder, he lies – in a rather terribly manner.

"I'll go talk to him." He says, his voice calm and steady, "I'll go talk to the Prince and make him change his mind. Don't worry, it's going to be okay." He makes a short pause, takes a look at Nagisa's features to see how he reacts about the news - he still looks upset. Haru pats his head gently "If the Prince had recommended me to one of his friends, I should really feel proud after all. At worst it's just for one night... it's nothing I can't handle; I've seen worse."

Eventually Nagisa gives him a timid smile; it's visibly not enough to reassure him entirely but at least he won't think about it too much for the rest of the day.

It had never occurred to Haru that Rin could go this far with him; not even in his most dreadful dreams. He had been ignoring him for a whole week, for God's sake he even had forced him to watch his ridiculous hanky-panky the other night. And after all this humiliation Rin really thinks that Haru will accept to give himself to someone else, and all of the people, to a good friend of Rin's? He couldn't be serious, that couldn't be happening because it would mean Rin has gone mad over the past week – and it would only be a fair backlash for having put this much distance between them, Haru thinks bitterly.

It's no longer a game for Haru when his ass is involved. But for Rin, for his owner, it seems that this little detail had become insignificant over the week. Haru is enraged; honestly enraged. He wants to hit the nearest wall with his fist; he wants to break his hand just to show Rin how furious he had made him.

"Next time I won't just cut your pretty flower." He mutters as he walks by the gardens, in his way to Rin's room.

* * *

**The Favorite - Chapter Two.**

* * *

The gardens are teeming with servants and young ladies from good families, chatting under the rare scattered shadows the trees' leaves give them. Haru looks briefly for Rin, his eyes dawdling on the white petals he sees here and there while trying not to pay attention as for why the paltry murmurs had hushed down as soon as he had come into view. He doesn't find him here.

Instead, the Prince is parading through the Palace's covered alleys, a charming young lady walking arm in arm at his left side and on his right, there is another man with very large shoulders and dressed like a Prince. He must be Rin's so called friend, the one Haru has to spend the night with.

He spots them on the bridge which overhangs the gardens, chatting. The Prince lifts his head, and their eyes lock. Rin stops altogether, and his joyful cortege behind him mimics his halt on the spot. All of those people, with noble blood running in their veins, those obnoxious people who only love Rin for his power and not for what he truly is inside - for his heart and soul - are standing here so close to him, laughing and listening to him talking when Haru can't even approach him without all his guards tensing up and checking that he is not carrying any deadly weapon on him. As if no one upon the elite has attempted to take the Prince's life…Haru despises them all. The system is hypocritical and unfair; it's a corrupted one, Haru has known it since the day he was born but still, it adds to his current frustration and makes his fists curl into balls.

Rin just has time to witness Haru's rage in his eyes and then, he resumes walking as if it had not been important and the whole group follows. They are all dressed with fancy and expensive robes, ruby and emerald incrusted in their belts and decorating their ears and chest. As Haru stares helplessly at the back of Rin's neck disappearing slowly from where he stands, he fails to see the blue lagoon eyes scrutinizing him playfully -they're owned by the man standing next to Rin. Haru catches the insistent glance but it's already too late. He frowns, and resolves himself never to be in the man's presence again.

And so when the time comes, Haru sends Nagisa away for the night and locks himself into the small bathroom he has just for himself, on the apartment Rin had given him.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

"Haru-chan!" Nagisa cries behind the door. "Haru-chan, please, open the door!"

There is a loud 'bump' after Nagisa speaks, followed by many others that can't have been made by his blond friend's small fist. Rin's men must already be there, looking for him. What time is it already? Haru has no idea, for the room he's in has no window to check the color of the sky, or the ones the sun paints on the numerous clouds roaming in the distance. It's a place Rin would probably like a lot, he thinks; the floor is made with a mosaic of different shades of red. In the very center there is a small fountain where the clean water comes from. It's small, it's just enough for Haru to wash his face and his hands before he leaves his room but Haru never asked for more. In fact he has never asked for anything from Rin since the very first day they've met.

Maybe he should start now. Maybe he should ask for the rumbles behind his door to cease. They are giving him a headache and are probably frightening the poor Nagisa to death. He had told him to leave, though; so why is he still there?

"Nanase!" A loud and pretentious voice yells; Haru rolls his eyes in annoyance, "The Prince has called you to the main room more than an hour ago!"

Haru just sits on the floor next to the locked door, waiting, his mouth closed.

"Nanase! Open the damn door or we'll-"

"No we can't do that," another guard hisses, "The Prince would definitely kill us all if we were to break this door."

Haru smirks; he had thought so. He stretches his arms in the air above his head and sighs contently. Now there is one and only, extreme solution left for them to resolve their problem. They need to get the Prince, they need Rin to get here. Haru smiles; savoring his small victory.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

It's been almost twenty minutes since the noise had stopped. Haru knows it because he had time to sing that song in his head, the lullaby his mother used to sing, about five times now. It always calms his nerves to listen to his mother tongue, to imagine his mother's voice as he thinks the words and the melody over again and again. These days it's almost as if he can't remember her face anymore. He wonders if she is safe, if everyone back in the village is safe but he'll probably never know.

His footsteps echo in the silence of the night.

Haru can hear the crickets again; their cries are in perfect sync with Rin's stride, and Haru can almost picture his pissed-off face as he quickly closes the distance separating them. Haru opens the door before Rin has the chance to knock, and leans on the fountain behind him, waiting with his eyes on him.

The Prince is wearing one of his prettiest tunics tonight. There are refined gold laces falling from his neck and covering his chest. The white robe he wears under his long dark cape is tightened to his waist by a deep red belt made of silk, revealing the Prince's toned body and muscular torso. His hair is hidden behind a luxurious headdress. It's such a waste, Haru thinks, for Rin doesn't need all these sickening embellishments to be the most beautiful creature Haru has ever set his gaze on. Rin is a pieve of jewelry just by himself.

Haru shivers as soon as Rin closes the door behind him. He does is in a smooth way, a fake attempt to make his favorite believe that his revolt didn't make him mad; to make him believe he doesn't care anymore. But Haru won't buy that. He knows it can't be true.

Very quickly the room is filled with Rin; with his scent and his magnetism, with his burning rage - or passion, that's the way Haru chose to interpret it long ago. The room is small really; too small to contain Rin's aura and it ends up crushing on Haru. It's the kind of strength that weakens his knees and makes his hands wet and trembling; it's speeding up his heartbeat and reddening the top of his cheeks, and Haru feels dizzy before Rin had the opportunity to touch him. It's the kind of power Rin has on him. It has nothing to do with being the Prince or owning him, no; it's something much more powerful than that.

As Rin approached him, his steps rough and muscles tensed; Haru leans against the fountain more, his butt almost sitting on it. Is he scared of him now? Does he fear Rin's wrath, knowing that he might have gone a little bit too far this time?

He knows the fate of those who dared to disobey a Prince's order once. They have never being given the chance to do it twice.

Rin's arms cage Haru's slender waist. "Why?" He asks simply, as if Haru could read his mind and guess all the unspoken questions that run through his mind.

"You know why," he answers Rin, a frown appearing on his face. "I am not playing your game anymore. This is enough, Rin-"

"'My Prince'." Rin corrects him, and it's a blow that goes straight to Haru's heart - and makes him bleed inside. "Who are you to think you can disregard my orders so bluntly? What do you think people will say about me if I can't even handle my own whores-"

"But I am not one of your whores, am I?"

Rin is looking so harshly at him, it's like they're back five years in the past, when they were both strangers to each other and when they were nothing more but the master-slave relationship binding them together.

"Am I, Rin?" Haru repeats, his eyes wounded, and scared of what they have become. When he sees how much his words had hurt him, Rin drops his gaze on the mosaic floor, not daring, not wanting to witness the despair running inside those blue eyes again.

Haru had known many things. He was born in a happy family, poor but loving; he'd had friends who were caring and always there for him. He had known war and death, sand and blood mixing, sticking on his skin. He had known the jail, the thirst the starvation; and then he had known Rin. He had discovered the bliss, the warm baths, the luxury, the soft bed; he had lived surrounded by Rin's words of love and his caress. He had known nothing but these delightful moments for five long years; and that's probably why Haru feels like right now, what Rin is doing to him is a pure act of cruelty - even more than all the war crimes he had seen. Because before Rin, before his life here at the Palace he had never been in such a state of bliss and happiness; and now Rin was taking that away from him. He had given him everything he could have asked for and never told him it wasn't forever.

When did he start to take Rin's love for granted?

"I own you." Rin hisses, "Unless you have a better reason than wanting to humiliate me in front of my guests by disobeying me you'll do what I ask you to do. You'll be exactly what I ask you to be. I thought that was clear from the very beginning."

"It was, at first it was..." Haru says, his hands coming closer to the Prince, not touching him but asking permission to do so. "I thought things have changed between us. No, I didn't - things have changed; you're different, we are different-"

"Haru, it's not because I favor you that it gives you a different status. You're still a slave." His fingertips run on Haru's bare arm. "And I'm still your master."

His hand wanders to his shoulder, caresses his collarbone delicately as if it was fragile and treasured; then Rin takes Haru's chin in his hand and lifts it so that their eyes would meet. Haru can't repress a shudder. Rin's touches make him melt; every time their skin are in contact it transports him to another world, a world where his limbs are made of jelly and where not even the freshest water could sooth the heat raging inside him. When Rin touches him nothing no longer exists anymore but the two of them; everything turns dark, for Rin's light dazzles his sight and dazes his mind into oblivion.

Rin isn't blind nor a fool – far from it. He sees the way Haru's skin answers to his delicate touch. "Haru," He murmurs then, his voice so soft and caring again, "Haru do you want me?"

The absurdity of the question almost makes Haru laugh. "Yes I do," he answers honestly; because he cannot lie to his Prince and the Prince knows that too well. Rin leaves his chin to cup his face; Haru leans into the touch, his cheek fully pressed in his palm. Rin strokes the skin under his eye with his thumb. The tip of his painted nails brushes his sensitive points and sends shivers down his spine. Haru sighs, his eyes closed.

And then, Rin takes him in his arms unexpectedly - and so Haru does the same without an ounce of hesitation and he holds him tight against him, their chest pressed into each other letting no air pass by them. He hums the scent of Rin's hair. It's intoxicating, almost toxic. It could make him go crazy and lose his resolve not to beg for Rin and yet, he can't help but inhale with his nose stuck on those flaming red hair, deeply, as if it was the last time they would be in each other's arms.

Rin's hands end on the small of his back, his nose nuzzling Haru's, their lips so close and yet so far. Haru is starving for those. He had been dreaming of them for eight long nights and now they are so close and yet unreachable. Couldn't they stop the game already, and enjoy themselves in sin like they used to? Is that too much to ask, for Rin to become carefree again?

His eyes are still stuck on his lips when Rin speaks again, his tone much more serious than before. "Haru…" the sound of his voice makes him alert, and Haru lifts his eyes to meet Rin's and he has a bad, bad feeling about this. "Haru, do you love me?"

Just as expected the question comes out of Rin's mouth, lands on Haru's skin and slides through his body like a drop of water, soon to be forgotten on the ground. Haru's gaze falls on the floor, as if by lowering his eyes Rin would magically forget about him, about the answer he wants and yearns so dearly. It brings him back years - two years, exactly - in the past.

The first time Rin had asked him this question Haru had been caught off guard. Even if he had told him they were just the same, even if Rin had taken Haru's dagger and had cut on both of their fingers to show him that their blood was the same, Rin was a Prince and Haru a slave. He could not believe a second that the Prince would want to be loved by him in such a romantic and sincere way. So instead of speaking his mind Haru took the ask as a mere megalomaniac demand, a way for the Prince to feel even more powerful and loved. Since no one could ever lie to him or wanted to make him upset, for he was the Prince, people must always answer him 'yes'; that was what Haru thought with his naïve and young mind.

"Just as any other person here, I guess," he told him, rather mindlessly. Rin's face stilled for a second or so, and then he laughed, sadly.

They were naked in his bed, their bodies tired and contented; Haru was lying on his stomach while Rin was eating dates sitting on the edge of the bed. He had just turned 18. He looked very lonely.

Seconds, minutes had passed; minutes where Haru watched, hypnotized, Rin eating and then sucking on his fingers when the dates had disappeared into his mouth. Yet, it didn't make him aroused again. Instead there was this warm, aching and heavy pain inside his chest that grew more intense by each second, after Rin asked him that question.

Haru crawled on Rin's leg, his head securely set on his hip and he dropped tons and tons of little kisses on the creamy, salty skin. His kisses traveled up to Rin lips quickly and then, after he broke the kiss Rin fed him and made Haru lick on his fingers.

Haru rested his head on the Prince's shoulder. It was comfortable here; everything about Rin was.

"I really hope you don't." Rin said, and Haru only understood his words much later, the moment he realized that the nobles in the Palace were just self-interested greedy men, only thirsty for more power and glory.

"I'm scared people fake their interest in me," Rin had told him another day, months after that. "I'm scared that they love me for what I am and not for who I am." He had looked at Haru expectantly that day, asking him silently, begging him to love him for the person he was and not because he was a Prince and his Master, and even if Haru understood the turmoil of his heart perfectly he couldn't resign to say the words that would have appeased the pain of his heart.

Because Rin already owned him head to toes; and Haru wouldn't let him have it all.

That's why his answers have always been the same, during all those years when Rin had asked. And even now Haru refuses to say those words that die on his lips every time he looks at Rin.

"Don't make me lie to you." He says; it's not a lie and it doesn't tell anything about what Haru truly feels but still, as usual Rin takes it as a firm 'no' and loses his mind.

His back is being firmly crushed against the wall. Rin's grip was so strong that it had made Haru fly across the room, his feet leaving the ground for a short moment. It feels like Rin wants to tear him apart, wants to cut himto pieces and takes every single one of his limbs back with him so that they will always stay by his side.

"What does it fucking mean?!" He shouts. His eyes are crying his rage and anger. "Why all this if you don't love me?! Is it just really because you are arrogant that you think you can overstep me?!"

"Rin, calm down-"

"Don't call me by my name!" Rin is at the verve of punching him, his fist freezes mid-way. "Don't...ever call me Rin again!"

Haru calmly takes Rin's hand in his and makes it fall on his side; he hears him choke back tears. Of course the Prince would never show any sign of weakness in front of anybody of a lower rank than him, but Haru is different. With Haru, everything has always been different; that's probably why Rin hates him so much at this very moment.

"Fuck," he breathes, as he places his forehead against Haru's, looking for solace, "Fuck Haru I gave you everything I could. I gave you everything no one would ever dare to ask for. I love you Haru. I love you so much, so why? Why are you doing this to me?"

Rin leans even more closely so that their lips are now only separated by a space thinner than a hair. Haru's mouth opens – a reflex he has each time Rin's lips are so close to his - and his tongue almost commits the forbidden act to taste Rin first. "I know you must love me. Haru...Haru..."He repeats with a cracked voice. "Why won't you say it to me..."

Rin has never been a slave. He has never been owned. He can't possibly understand.

"Don't make me lie to you."

These are his final words; and he won't change them even if his life depends on it.

He would rather die as a free man.

Rin closes his eyes; his breath is caught in his throat for a moment but eventually he relaxes. He looks like he was thinking about an important thing and has finally found the answer he was looking for. When his lids open, the rage is gone, as well as the passion. In fact Rin's eyes are blank and unemotional, empty of everything Haru loves to see in them.

"Will you do the assignment I gave you for tonight?"

Haru doesn't say anything. He knows Rin will understand.

"Fine. I thought so."

And with that last statement, he leaves the cramped and suffocating room; he leaves Haru alone with the streaming sounds of water coming from the fountain as his only company.

"Have a good night, rest well. Enjoy the softness of your sheets and the refreshing feeling of air entering your lungs. Enjoy the small pleasures of life, for this night will be your last."

...What?

"Rin," Haru asks, thunderstruck, "What are you talking about?"

"I told you to call me 'My Prince'. You know no one by the name of Rin, not anymore." As realization hits him like the eye of a cyclone would, Haru feels his mind and soul leaving his own body. He feels his self levitating in a trance; and looks at Rin's silhouette from above, horrified. "You have obstinately refused to obey my orders; therefore you will receive the punishment you deserve, tomorrow at sunrise."

Rin turns his heels and faces Haru, who had come out of the bathroom as well, his hand still holding on the door to keep his balance steady. His head is spinning, but not in a pleasant way; it has nothing to do with the way Rin usually makes his world turn upside down. He could barely hear Rin's voice now, hidden by his own loud and fast heartbeat and the buzzing in his ears. It feels like being at the war again, with the strong smell of iron and fresh blood and the sun rays burning on the back of his head. The scene in front of him becomes fuzzy, Haru no longer recognizes the wall of his own room; there is just Rin, his body shape barely neat and his lips, moving, saying words that take some time to find their way to Haru's brain.

"Tomorrow at sunrise Royal guards will come to you. They will give you a cup of water, some bread and a plate of fresh fruits. After you'll have finished your last meal you will be asked for a last wish, that I shall grant or not. And then, you'll be beheaded in the center of the throne room on my watch."

His eyes were cold as the desert's nights when he spoke those baneful words. He turns his back to Haru, and as he watches every piece of his life being shattered and falling in the depth of Rin's sudden madness, Haru had one and only, last silly thought.

Is this the end of them? Does Rin really want them to part that way?

Suddenly the idea of not being able to see Rin is more painful than the concept of his own death.

"Rin…"

He calls him out, but the Prince never turns around, for Rin doesn't exist anymore; not for Haru in any case - but it's a something Haru will never be able to master, because Haru has never been a Prince, he had never been feared and deceived the way Rin had and thus, he cannot understand; just as Rin will never be able to understand why Haru acts this way.

There is still, one only and indestructible link between them, a universal language they can both understand, a fundamental strength that all of the men know and yearn for - the ultimate goal, the unreachable dream.

"Rin!" Haru lets out a cry of despair; this, this couldn't be the end, it was just a very bad nightmare, all of this was happening too fast, how could he be a dead man when he had seen love in Rin's eyes just a week ago, when Rin has just told him he loved him, no this couldn't be happening, this couldn't Rin has to understand, he needs time to make him understand - and what if all of this was happening because of the Bride?

"The Rin I knew would have never done this to me if he really loved me."

The Prince's figure stills at the entrance. Time freezes. And then, just as quickly as he had come, the Prince disappears out of the view, his long and dark cape tickling the white marble tiles as he flounces out the room.

* * *

_Comments are gladly welcomed :)_


	3. III

_Sorry I'm late to post it here_

_Here goes chapter3!_

* * *

Haru dreams that night.

He dreams of a place where Rin is happy; a place where he can stare at his angelic, smiling face, and where only tears of happiness fall from his eyes. It's a wonderful place with lots of water and a giant tree, full of small pink flowers Haru has never seen before.

"It's so romantic..." Rin moans, as he lies on the grass, his hair filled with pink petals. He looks like a child, no more than thirteen. Haru just watches him; he stands far away even if it aches not to be near him; his fingertips burn at the lack of touch but somehow it doesn't feel right, it feels too soon yet to stand so close to Rin.

He blinks and the scenery changes. They are now walking hand in hand on the sand next to a huge oasis - it's pure madness, the stretch of water looks endless before their eyes when they don't have enough water for everyone back in his village; what is that holy place?

The silence enveloping them is a comfortable one. Rin feels warm, but not overwhelming. It's easy to breathe next to him, and natural to just simply be here by his side and not to ache for his touch. It's so simple and yet so it's _right_ at the same time. Rin kisses him gently on the temple and the simple gesture is enough to fill Haru with an immeasurable joy.

He blinks again, they are at a wedding. Their wedding.

His pillow is wet under his head when he wakes up. The sun is timidly showing its rays through the small window of Haru's room. The Royal Guards are already knocking violently on the wooden frame.

He tells Nagisa not to open the door; this time it's something he needs to do alone.

**The Favorite - Chapter Three**

Haru had thought a lot about what Rin had said the night before, about the last wish he would be granting him. He thought about asking for an intense love-making hour session to be honest, but considering they won't be alone in the throne room, Rin would be most likely inclined to refuse; he doesn't want the last thing Rin will remember of him to be this tentative of humiliation.

And, on top of that, it would be _begging_; and Haru won't fall this low, even in his last moment - especially because these were to be his last moments.

Everything is pictured in his head now. Bent on his knees, his head lowered, Rin will ask for his final wish, and with a bright and singing voice Haru will speak, proud of his life, proud of what he had accomplished and of whom he had loved unconditionally. '_I want Rin to be happy,' _he will say. And then his head will fall on the floor, red blood spurting on the black and white small tiles and he will be gone. He'll be dead, but Rin will remember him for the rest of his life - and he'd better, after all the moments they have shared together and what he has done to him, he'd really better.

That's his perfect ending; at least in his head. He will die as a free man, and the one surviving will be haunted by his ghost until the end of time, never giving him mercy, ruining his marriage and his life.

Haru finally opens the door. Behind them, there are servants, a lots of them. The first one pushes him to the side and opens the second part of the door. A dozen servants, each holding a tray with a different dish, enters his room. Nagisa eyes start shining; the poor boy has certainly never seen so much food gathered in one place in his whole life. They are even dates and oranges, apricot and nectarines, honey and milk. There are probably enough supplies to feed the entire harem; it's so much that it leads Haru to think the servants have been mistaken, or that they will wait for them to finish their part before taking the leftovers to the other slaves.

But, astonishingly, they don't.

As soon as the trays are set on the floor, the servants exit the room and close the door behind them.

There are no soldiers, or weapons. There is no death threat.

Nagisa is crying, not touching any food, for the emotion had shut down his appetite for the time being. They have seen some executions before; they know what a real last meal looks like. And it's nothing like what's displayed in front of their eyes.

"He must really, really love you." Nagisa says when his tears have dried. His stomach growls, and he starts eating, his mind at peace. He is the only one though; Haru still thinks it's only one of Rin's special treatments reserved to him, another kind of perverted game he likes to play recently.

And so Haru waits, patiently, for a guard to take him to his final destination eventually. He eats very little; the sight of Nagisa eating so much and smiling warmly is enough to make him full anyway. The plates are half empty by lunch time, and Nagisa's belly is all round. As for Haru, he waits, unruffled; time runs by slowly, but in the end and against Haru's beliefs, nobody comes.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

"Haru-chan, are you in love with the Prince?"

Haru is looking at the window, enjoying the view twice as much as before. The question he is being asked makes the time pass by more slowly. Outside they can only hear the singing of the rare birds living in the Prince's gardens, hidden in the leaves. Nagisa patiently waits for an answer, his legs close to his chest and his arm wrapping around them. He smiles tenderly.

"Yes; I am." Haru says quietly.

It feels so weird to confess his love aloud. It's exactly as Haru had dreaded it; it's like he had just torn a part of his soul and had given it to someone else - but it's Nagisa so, it's okay, it's more than okay. It's the very first time for him. He had always been afraid of admitting his feelings but now it doesn't matter anymore, and he feels like someone has to remember them and to keep them carried on after he's gone.

"Really?" Nagisa has this playful light in his eyes; Haru doesn't have a good feeling about this. "And you've never told him?"

He frowns at that statement. How could he possibly know?

"I don't want him to know." Haru mutters, and resumes watching the clouds outside the Palace.

"But he told you he loved you, right?"

Again Haru frowns. Is Nagisa a mind reader? Or had he been there in the bathroom with them yesterday night? At least one thing's for sure; Nagisa has always been very wise when it concerns love's issues.

"I find it curious that you won't tell him you love him. Why? Is that only because you're stubborn as a mule, really?"

Haru looks away. He doesn't want to give his reasons. Nagisa is a slave too, therefore he should understand. He shouldn't need to ask.

"But, Haru-chan," Nagisa goes on, not waiting for any kind of answer - and Haru is glad, really. "I think you should tell him. Tell him that you love him before it's too late." He pauses, takes a piece of gingerbread left on the trail in his hand, and eats it. "It's part of the tradition, you know."

But Haru never cared about some barbarian traditions that weren't from his people.

Being so passive makes him feel ants in his pants, and so in the beginning of the afternoon Haru decides to leave his room and to walk into the Palace's garden once more. Maybe he will spot Rin there. He'd like to see him, before his guards eventually come for him. But he isn't there; Rin is in none of the places where Haru can freely look for him.

After an hour or so of idleness Haru finally chooses to return to his room.

On the way back he is pleasantly surprised to see people aren't paying much attention to him. It's a change, a very welcome change but after he gives it a thought it just doesn't feel right. It's awkward; after all the fuss he had done last night, and the news of the execution, people should be only talking about him, people should be laughing at him, or feeling sorry for him. But now everybody seems to ignore his presence altogether.

Maybe he is dreaming again. Maybe he is already dead.

When he comes back Nagisa is holding a white and rectangular piece of parchment and tears are dropping from his eyes to the Prince's missive.

"You've been summoned," he whimpers, and then Haru holds him in his arms and lets him cry on his robes.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

The two guards nod when they see Haru approaching the throne room with little, halting steps. He nods back. Haru is still a slave, but everybody knows him here. He is the slave, the favorite, the one everybody is jealous of. And soon he will be the one who went too far, the one who pushed his luck with the Prince to its limit when he shouldn't have, and who will pay the price of his arrogance. For believing that there was something more than just a master-slave relationship between them, or that there could have been more when their fate had been decided by the kind of sheets they were born in.

Haru swallows, his throat feels dry; Nagisa's words can't leave his mind now that he is about to face his fate.

This is literally his very last chance to tell Rin how he really feels about him.

Why is it so complicated to choose his last words? _'Rin, I love you; please be happy with your new life' _isn't catchy enough. He wants Rin to cry at his disappearing. He needs more time...if only he could have-

Haru finds himself in the middle of the throne room before he has time to finish the train of his thoughts.

"Haru, you're finally here!"

Rin's voice is clear and cheerful. There is no one but his usual guards and a soldier, no older than him, standing in the middle of the room a little bit...incongruously. The guy is wearing spectacles, and the uniforms of the outside patrol - what is he doing here?

"This is Ryuugazaki Rei. He will be our new guard - since we're one down since last night."

The scene looks unreal. Haru had walked upon his execution and now Rin is talking about...a new...guard? - That doesn't make any sense.

"What happened?" Haru asks, still wondering if he is going to get killed here.

"Oh, hem, he just - he was missing this morning." Rin answers, missing the point; his voice sounds unsure and quavering. "So I got us a new guard. Show him the way, will you?"

"What?"

"Well, I don't know. Start with the garden and then the promenade-"

"No I mean Ri-_My Prince_," he corrects himself in time, "What is happening?"

Rin avoids his gaze even more. "I'm ordering you to be this guard's guide for today. Is that still too much to ask of you?"

When finally their eyes meet, Haru finds out that there is something broken reflecting in Rin's red eyes. He looks like he's lost something and was pretty sure he'd never find it back.

Haru's feet walk on their own after he's been dismissed, the new guard - Ryuugazaki, was it? - following him like his own shadow, talking and talking like a chatterbox.

"No but I don't understand. Yesterday I was still in the Palace entrance, guarding it with pride and a beautiful uniform and now-"

Of course, Haru doesn't pay attention to the man. His mind hasn't been able to leave the throne room yet. He still can't believe it.

Rin had spared him.

"-and they didn't even ask for my opinion you know they just decide to give me those ugly robes that don't even match my glasses and-"

They reach Haru's apartment quicker than he thought. Haru opens the door; Nagisa is curled into a ball on his bed, probably still crying, with his legs tangled around the sheets. The blond lifts his head as he hears the door being opened and the sight is nearly enough to make him pass out.

"Haru-chan!" he screams, and then runs into his arms. He doesn't ask what happened, because Nagisa can guess it just fine and also because, after seeing how confused Haru looks he had certainly judged that it wouldn't help to ask him anything.

"Who are you?" he asks instead, to the newcomer standing straight like a rod behind Haru.

"Ryuugazaki-san! New Royal Guard of the Prince." The guard bends to salute them, Nagisa put his hand on his mouth to repress a laugh. "It's an honor to serve you."

"Oh but, we're not member of the royalty, Ryuugazaki-san. We're both slaves." The guard looks baffled for a moment and then, realizing what he had just done, blushes crimson red. Nagisa laughs a bit this time, not minding being discreet or not. "Haru-chan is the Prince's Favorite, that's why you may have been confused."

"I thought the Prince was supposed to get married very soon - I mean I didn't want to be offensive," he adds quickly after spotting the pain showing on Haru's face, "But it's just normally the Prince should pay more at-t-tention to the future bride than-"

"I understand." Haru says weakly. He walks to his bed and lies there for a bit. He drifts off for a short while, his back hiding him from the two other's view. Only one thought occupies his mind, lingers on his bones, and makes everything else appear pointless.

Rin saved him.

It's the only thing that matters to him at this very moment. The Bride could wait, the Bride could even do whatever she wants; Rin had chosen to save him and he wouldn't have done that for a mere stranger coming to the Palace to celebrate a arranged marriage. Haru feels this warm, overwhelming feeling inside his chest, burning his insides and climbing to his throat, to his eyes.

He cries silently, listening to Nagisa's cheering voice speaking to the guard he had to take care of today and Haru curses. He loves Rin, he really does; maybe a little bit too much - and he forgives him everything, always. He wants to see him. Not even to touch him and being touched; just to see him flesh and bone and to talk to him, face to face, just like they used to when they were teens.

"Nagisa, would you mind showing our new guest the Palace with me?" He asks him an hour later - the guard, having nothing else to do, had accepted Nagisa's offer to eat the rest of the buffet they have been delivered this morning. "I'm not really in the mood to do so but the Prince asked me to."

"No problem! Come on, Ryuugazaki-chan!"

"Don't call me that way..." The guard says, defeated by Nagisa's natural affable attitude.

"You're right; Rei-chan sounds more easy and more short!"

"I didn't mean it that way!" Rei blushes again and pests. "And it's not the proper way of saying things."

"Nagisa didn't have the chance to have a proper education, you know."

Haru's cold comment puts an end to the conversation, and makes Rei's cheeks go red with another kind of embarrassment.

They walk down the alley, through the gardens; they even make Rei visit the water rooms and the place where he'll eat. On the way towards his new barracks they fall on Rin. He is walking peacefully, chatting with his mother and his younger sister. Of course, his court is still following him - they are fewer this time, Haru notices - and there is still that mysterious, banal woman near him, tugging on his arm. Haru looks away. He can't believe that he is jealous of such things - he never thought he would be, considering what they used to have, what they used to be. Haru looks away but Nagisa doesn't, and thus the short blond doesn't miss the warm and sincere smile the Prince gives them when he sees his favorite passing by, accomplishing the task he'd been asked.

Rei bows again when he says goodbye, as they have reached the barracks' entrance. God, this guy can be so embarrassing, thinks Haru but then, he notices Nagisa is kind of blushing as well - so he doesn't say anything, and pretends he has seen nothing of what is displaying in front of his eyes.

They come back silently to their apartment.

Haru lies down again in bed but fails to sleep. Rin is still haunting his thoughts - so he gets up, and without really knowing what do say or why he has the sudden urge to see him, he walks towards Rin's bedroom in the middle of the night.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

His hand freezes as he is about to knock. Surprisingly there are no guards, there isn't a soul in sight and it should have alarmed him. Haru's forehead falls on the frame of the door. Rin isn't alone tonight. There is someone with him, a woman to be precise, and Haru can hear their voices, their laughs, their moans so perfectly that it's making him sick.

There have always been others, Haru knows that; he had been one of the others for so long but it had never hurt him so much. He knows he should just go, that his place no longer belongs behind this door but he can't find the resolve to move. It's like Rin's soft noises are hypnotizing him, forcing him to stay and to listen to the man he loves having pleasure with someone who isn't him.

That's it. That's the way Rin chooses to kill him off. The sweet decapitation was too much of a gift for him; he deserves the cruel and slow way, he deserves to go mad and to lose his mind before he can rest in peace with his eyes full of dreams of him and Rin living happily ever after. He would have rather died this morning than being there tonight, standing in front of Rin's door and feeling banished from his own home.

He had never wanted so much to own Rin like Rin owns him. Haru feels the hot and destructive feeling of jealous and rage coming up to his chest again; and suddenly he wants to see her. Is she the woman he saw yesterday? Or is she just another girl his mother bought him?

Is she the Bride?

Haru wants to know - in his mind he _deserves_ to know who will take _his_ place - and so he sits against the guardrail on the other side of the long corridor, his legs against his chest and his arms wrapping around them, and he waits.

He waits for hours but no one comes out of Rin's room.

Nagisa finds him just before the first guard's round. He drags him back to their room, Haru feeling like nothing but a dead weight. He crawls on his bed but doesn't sleep until the sun is up to the sky. He doesn't wake up until night time - and it's only because there is something he needs to do.

* * *

**.**

**o0o0o**

**.**

* * *

Rin in lying on his bed, half-asleep. The red curtain hanging from his four-poster hides the moonlight from his face that would prevent him from sleeping properly. He misses the sight of a shadow, obscuring the red tissue and he only opens his eyes fully when he hears the rustling of the fabric against the skin, and the sound of an unknown body jumping on his bed, its legs strangling his hips perfectly.

The man on top of him has his face covered with white and blue headdress, his belly is bare from clothes revealing his perfectly toned stomach but it's not the first thing that Rin sees. It's the man's eyes; blue like the sky above their head, sad, angry and desperate blue eyes looking at him and then, looking at the pillow beside him - more precisely at the thing hidden behind it. Rin snaps.

"No-" he says but it's too late, the man - no_ Haru_, he knows it's Haru; he has sensed him coming even before he had reached his window, he knows the feeling of his legs against him too well, he could recognize his pair of eyes among hundreds of blue ones - takes the dagger out of his hiding place. He raises it above his head. The moonlight reflects on the refined sliver blade as he lowers his arms, but the weapon never reaches the Prince's delicate and aghast features he was aiming at. The dagger stops in midair, as does Haru's sudden blaze of insanity.

"...it's mine." Haru breathes, his voice unsettled.

"Ah, I guess I've lost my bet."

Rin sits up, his heartbeat is erratic in his ribcage but overall he manages to stay composed after the failed attempt of assassination. He looks at Haru; his eyes are glued on the silver blade that had once been his. "Yes it is yours. Well at least it was; I own everything that had ever been yours since the day you were bought."

Haru doesn't even mind being reminded of his status; and it's really strange, coming from him. He seems captivated by his old dagger. "Why are you sleeping with it?"

"In case something like that happens?" Rin scratches the side of his head. "No but, more seriously Haru, what are you really doing here?"

They whisper in the dark, fearing a guard could overhear them. Haru could get arrested and killed for what he is doing but, it's not the first time he'll play with his life for Rin, and somehow it feels like it's exactly what Rin was looking for all along.

"I came to claim back what's mine." He murmurs, his hands still holding the dagger.

Rin falls on his back again, looking at Haru, his thumb stroking the fabric of his pants on the start of his hip. "Do you really intend to kill me, Haru?" His voice doesn't sound that alarmed, or even disappointed - it looks like he really asks out of curiosity. As if it wouldn't even bother him if Haru answers him 'Yes'.

Haru's hands are still frozen, his knuckles turning white - what is he doing? what is he thinking? Is that really the only way for him and Rin to be together? Is there no other way for them to be happy than in death?

There is no other way. Haru would rather kill them both than witness, every other day of his life, the one he loves more than life itself being married to someone else.

"Because, the Haru I know would never do this to me if he really loved me."

The cold breeze of the night blows on the velvet curtains, making them wave. The silver blade falls soundlessly on the bed.

Haru doesn't own anything anymore.

Rin has taken all away from him.

A single tear runs in his cheek, a tear that Rin caresses away with his delicate fingers. He waits for him to say something, Haru can see it in the depth of his eyes; and so he speaks, honestly, and displays the weight burdening his heart.

"I hate you. I hate you so much." He sobs.

Rin only smiles in response, and holds him close in his embrace.

* * *

_If you want to hug Haru too clap your hands o/ *clap clap*_


	4. IV

_Warning for violence and mention of death._

* * *

The very first time Haru had laid his eyes on the Prince was on the day he was bought.

The sun rays were sheltering worn out bodies, waiting in line with their knees covered with burning sand. It had only been the second day for Haru; some had been there for weeks, waiting for a rich lord to buy them or for the unlucky ones, Lady Death's scythe. The most strapping and willing to live had developed numerous strategies to palliate the lack of water. Haru could see the recent scars on their lips; they had deliberately provoked the guard to punch them, so that they could drink their own blood to survive through the heat and the thirst.

Haru hadn't needed all of that. His stature was slender and delicate; his nails were done and his hair smelt of orange blossom. It was a blessing that the robbers chose the day he went to the public bathroom to attack. He had seen some of the men who had been taken with him, men from his village he didn't know, being dragged out their cells and never to come back again. Some were dead; some had been made warriors and were sacrificed on endless sandy fields. Haru had tried to forget about them, but it was almost impossible with the lack of water and of warm clothes at night not to think about death.

A Royal guard had thought, maybe on a whim, that he looked way too pretty to be sold to anyone else but the Prince. And that's why after two days of dehydration and starvation, two days without having felt anything but sand and the blazing kiss of the sun on his skin; Haru found himself in the Royal bathroom with two older women washing his back, where he was being offered a handful of grapes in a rust-colored basket, embellished with very thin laces of gold drawing the shape of a woman's naked body.

Haru thought he was hallucinating, he thought he was about to wake up any moment but it's only when, washed and dressed in the most sophisticated way, royal guards escorted him to the biggest bedroom he had ever seen, it was only then that Haru understood that it was none but another living nightmare.

The door slamming loudly behind him sounded like the growling of fate.

Standing right in front of him was the young Prince, looking at the luxurious gardens from the balcony of his refined room, his back facing Haru.

He wasn't fully grown yet, Haru could tell; he was just like him. A teen, merely. And yet he was the Prince. And yet he owned him.

Haru wouldn't have any of that. He was a free man and he would be for the rest of his life; he'd rather choose death than slavery. He wouldn't let that boy have him, in any way he could imagine in his head; he wouldn't let the Prince possess him.

The Prince was still wearing light sleeping clothes, his hair was free from any ornament; he was just standing with a white dress, vulnerable to the morning cold breeze. Wine-colored bangs floated as the air went in the room. The Prince turned his head, just a little, as he heard the guard entering his private room. Haru took notice of his eyes; they were the same color as his hair - and, Haru thinks now, even from that time he had looked quite lonely; Rin had looked depressed the first second he had seen him and he still wonders what he was looking at this morning from the window of his luxurious but empty room.

Was he waiting for something to come?

Haru wanted to run away but the sadness in those red eyes told him otherwise for a few seconds, and this short moment of hesitation was all it took for his escape to fail. The moment he tried to turn around, a guard was already on him; he punched him and pushed him harshly on the floor. But a sigh, almost imperceptible, made the guards' fists froze in midair as they were about to correct Haru again for his behavior. Then came short and lazy footsteps; and Haru wished they would release their grip on his neck so that his face wouldn't be stuck on the tiles but instead, looking up to the Prince's face.

His wish was granted, though. A hand curled in his chin and lifted his head; the Prince had knelt.

"Enough." He said, and then, the guards retreated, one by one, leaving them alone in the royal bedroom. He hadn't even meant to give orders, his voice was nothing but a child's one and yet he had probably every adult here wrapped around his little finger.

The Prince stroked his skin, his long and painted nail scratching and tickling the corner of his mouth. "He was right," he murmured, so lightly and fondly that at some point Haru wondered if it was something he had been supposed to hear, "Your have eyes as clear as water."

The Prince had asked for his wound to be healed that day, nothing more. Haru was brought back to the Prince's room every day by orders, but never did he touch him. They just spent their days talking; or at least the Prince did talk a lot, for Haru had stayed pretty silent at first. But he found himself not willing to anymore, as time went by, as he got more and more used to the Prince's aura and it was only a matter of time before Haru found himself trusting him like he would have never imagined to.

"Haru! Come here." He had said one evening at the balcony. The sunset was breathtaking, painting the sky with different shades of pink - that's probably why the Prince wanted him to see it too. They've stared together at the scenery until the moment Haru was left alone in contemplation - he could feel the Prince's eyes on him, again. It made him feel nervous.

"Haru, would you be my friend?"

The Prince had taken his dagger - the one that had been Haru's in another life, a life where he was a free man - and together they have shared their blood. They would now be linked forever, with a straight scar on the flesh of their forearm continuously reminding them of their bond.

"You can call me Rin now," The Prince had said, "For you, my friend, I'll just be Rin, and you'll just be Haru. We're the same. We're just men."

From that time where they have both drunk each other's blood and licked on each other's arms, Haru understood that he wouldn't quite be happy with only being friend with the Prince. Every day when he came back to the brothel he heard about hundreds of stories about Rin, about how he liked to spend the night and more precisely, with _who; _and that person was never him. He remembered it as he drank Rin's blood. It tasted just like his, but there was something else, something on the skin that made the taste delightful.

He wanted to taste more. He wanted more of Rin and as he was his property, Haru started to wonder why the Prince had never asked for Haru once in the countless nights he had already spent here. The thought drove him crazy to the point of insolence.

Just a week after their sharing, Haru kissed the Prince on a whim. Their faces were too close on the silk red cusion; they had stopped talking and were just gazing blankly at each other. Rin was growing more and more beautiful by the days. Haru had matured, too, not only physically; his heart had started beating on a different rhythm since the days Rin's eyes decided to invade his dreams.

And if only it had just been his eyes.

Rin's mouth tasted of something divine. The Prince was so shocked that he let him do this, let him savor him in a forbidden way; because no one was allowed to touch the Prince in a way he hadn't touched one before.

When he broke the kiss, Haru didn't apologize. He just waited, half expecting Rin to shout - only half because, they were friends after all, what kind of person would shout at a friend? - but Rin did none of it. Instead he looked stunned, kind of frozen in time and desperately gorgeous. It was sunset again. The golden rays were illuminating the back of Rin's head, enlightening the blood-wine bangs' that fell on his cheeks; it made him look unreal, inhuman, unreachable.

And yet Rin leaned in and sealed their lips again.

They spent the night together.

It had been the very first time that Haru let Rin own him without a fight.

* * *

**The Favorite - Chapter IV**

* * *

.

The crook of Rin's neck brings him back memories of that time where everything seemed so simple, so easy. It was a time made of just him and Rin, their sleepless nights talking about the sky and the lost ocean, about creatures that were leaving in the depth of it, about the life Haru have had before he ended up here. Now, everything just seemed so far away, like a childhood memory that Haru could only remember tinted in sepia. It was only a few years ago.

How did they end up like that?

How on earth did Haru think the only solution was to kill Rin and to follow him in death for their story to have the happy ending he thought they deserved?

When did his relationship with Rin fuck him up that far?

Rin was caressing this back with a motherly care he thought he'd never feel again, coming from him. He strokes his arms and his shoulders, he waits patiently for his eyes to dry. It's only then that Rin dares to speak.

"Let me ask you this again, Haru. What are you doing here?"

The silence that follows isn't broken by anything but the guards patrol walking in the garden, their footsteps hitting the sand monotonously. There isn't even a breath that comes out of Haru's throat for he had shut it down, altogether - he doesn't want to talk to him. He doesn't want to tell him. He doesn't want Rin to know just how in love he is with him because it will be worse than dying.

"What were you trying to accomplish here, really? Did you really think you could kill me? That I will let you do so without complaining? You'll be killed on the spot when the guards find out. Unless..."

Haru hisses; he hates it when Rin starts to lecture him, he hates it because most of the time Rin can read him right and Haru has a feeling that tonight, as he wears his heart up to his sleeve the task won't be a very arduous one.

Rin stills and waits, again, for him to relax. The palms of his hands rest gently on his hips; it's not by any mean a way to immobilize him or to prevent him from leaving his lap, it has more to do with the way Rin silently shows his affection and caring. He wants him to feel at ease, he wants Haru's turmoil to stop. But how can he wish for such a thing when his only existence is at the core of Haru's pain?

And indeed Haru relaxes, helped by Rin's touches alone. The muscles on his thighs and back become less tensed, allowing him to sit better and fully on Rin's bare legs. The Prince sits up as well; he opens the velvet curtain of his four-poster and lets the moonlight hit on their faces. The white glimmer illuminates Rin's skin, and makes it shine - no, it makes it glitter. Rin's face is made of a million of incredibly small diamonds and under the moonlight they shine; and then the moon reaches his eyes and Haru can only see round and refined pair of rubies looking intensely back at him.

The sight of Rin mystifies him; it always does.

"I know you love me," He says when he feels Haru fully relaxed on his lap, "I know it because I've learn to read you after all these years. I know how you react, I know what your looks mean; I can see the desire showing in every single inch of your body when I'm just about to touch you."

"The body and the heart are two different things." Haru adds harshly. "It's not because you own one that the other follows naturally."

"Isn't it bleeding right now?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your heart." Rin answers, his voice gentle, no more than a whisper. "I can hear it bleeding."

He rests his ear on Haru's chest on top of the place where the said heart should be, listening carefully to his beating. "It has been bleeding for a week now, nine days and nine nights to be precise; hasn't it?"

Haru has never wanted more to grasp on Rin's hair and to tear all of them away, one by one. He feels so angry, so frustrated; because just like he had thought when he's on edge Haru is way more easier to read, and Rin knew that, and he had been the one orchestrating those nine days and nine nights of pure torture just for that intent.

"You're the only one to blame for that."

"I know." Rin says, bluntly.

Haru laughs bitterly at his honest provocation. "Then what was all that for?"

"Why did you come here tonight?"

And then it becomes too much. It's the straw that broke the camel's back_. _Haru is sick of it, sick of how easily Rin thinks he can play with him - and of how much it's working, he's sick of being in love with him, he's sick of being trapped in a cage he doesn't even want to escape anymore. His hands find themselves on the Prince's throat; he forces them to lie on the bed again.

"Stop that, Haru." Rin orders; and he does it without any trouble because the grip on his neck isn't even hard enough to make him ache - it's just a desperate attempt to make Rin realize that he's gone too far and that he has to stop playing games before Haru loses his mind for good. "I am your Prince and you have no right to touch me that way."

"Really!? We're back at that again, aren't we?!" Haru growls; the rage and frustration leaving drops of water in the corner of his eyes again. "You know it's not true! You know it's not only that!" Haru's shining eyes fall on Rin again. "For me, _with me_, you're not the Prince. With me you're just Rin. You're just a man..." He breathes as he calms down slowly, his forefinger stroking the scar on Rin's forearm. "You're my friend."

"Am I, really?"

Haru's frowns, bewildered by the sudden rhetorical question Rin asks him. "Of course you are."

Rin stays mysterious, his face unreadable under Haru's hands. They're still on his throat but only to drop a caress, here and then, as Rin's Adam apple moves when he speaks. "Because that's not what your heart is telling me." He says, and Haru shouldn't be surprised by the route he chooses to take, "It doesn't want to be my friend. It wants to be much more than that."

Haru gets off of his burning chest abruptly, as if the touch was enough to leave a burn. He tries to avoid Rin's intense gaze as well; it feels very uncomfortable to be so close to Rin right now because the man he loves with all his heart is getting closer and closer to the secret he had held within him for years.

Haru tries to escape, and of course Rin chases after him, and follows his movement like a shadow.

"It wants to be my lover, my sole and only." He adds, determined, after he's taken a solid grip on Haru's wrist. "And it feels destroyed at the thought of someone else fulfilling this role, it got persuaded that the only solution was to kill the both of us in order to find happiness again. It thinks death is the only way to free us from our chains so that we could love each other in a perfect world where we would be nothing but equals. That's what your heart is telling me."

There was a time when Haru wouldn't have surrendered without a fight. There was a time when Haru was still young, and strong, and not in love; there was a time when Haru was free and when he didn't know Rin yet and the Haru from that time would have probably resist against that man.

But that time is over. That Haru is gone.

"You can't understand, can you?" Haru talks, his voice strangled, his words carefully chosen, "You really want to take everything from me. As if owning me wasn't enough. You really want me to become less than a man-"

"I have never wanted to own you."

"But you do!"

"See?" Rin laughs, bitterly "You're not the only one who can't act as he pleases."

And for the first time in ages, Haru sees Rin's mask falling apart. He would have liked never to be born than to see him broken like that.

He hides his pain on the crook of Rin's neck again. It always calms his nerve when he's about to crumble. There he can smell Rin's scent; there he can taste his skin and the warmth of the flesh never fails to sooth his fears away, as he listens carefully to Rin's words.

"You know Haru, it's only because our hearts are feeling the same that I can read you so well. You weren't the only one who thought about death. But even that I can't decide, because as the Prince I can't fail my people before producing an heir. I thought for a moment that I could escape marriage as well, but my duties again forbade me to live the kind of life I long for. I wish we could carry on that way forever...but I would be blind to think it's even possible. I am the Prince, I have duties; I don't own my life and yet I own others'. I am not just Rin. I can't be just Rin, regardless how hard I want to be; and it has to be that way even with you or I'll never be able to move on."

Rin loses his hand in the mass of Haru's hair. He ruffles the dark bangs, caressing the skull with his sharp nails gently. He smiles sadly. "I am so sorry. I know I am being selfish but I need you to say it, Haru."

"I won't."

"Please."

"I can't." He mutters against Rin's skin; the sound is so hushed that he probably can't hear him. "I can't give it to you. It's the only thing I have left."

"Are you talking about your heart?"

"My heart. My honor. My freedom. Call it as you wish. I don't want to give you all. I don't want to be nothing more than an object."

And the thought alone of giving in makes him shiver in fear and dread. Haru takes a big breath to find the courage to talk again, the scent of Rin giving him the resolve he needs to get out of his trap. "If you really love me Rin then you will understand. You will leave me free from you."

"Are you refusing me the only thing I ever really wanted from you?"

Haru doesn't answer. Instead, he looks away, his gaze falling by pure hazard on his old dagger that Rin is now holding - he immediately looks back at Rin again, slightly panicked. What does he intend to do now, finish them both?

"And if I gave you something back, if I gave you something for you to own; would you allow your heart to be finally mine in return?"

He then gives back the dagger to his true owner. Haru takes it delicately on the palms on his hands as if it was nothing more than another trap he was more than willing to fall in if it could permit him to stay close to Rin a little bit longer. "It's a little bit flimsy, don't you think? You're trying to negotiate my love with a simple dagger."

"It's just a start; and that's the only thing I have within easy reach anyway. You've been crunching my legs for half an hour, you know."

It elects a laugh from Haru's lips, a laugh he would gladly hide, just like the love in his eyes every time their eyes meet. Suddenly, everything becomes so vain and futile, so unimportant in regards of their practically nonexistent future.

Because after all the situation is painfully simple. They are just two men in love. When they are together nothing else really matters. To hell with traditions, expectations, social ranks and jealousy; for once Haru should put his pride aside and let Rin have what he wants, the only thing he has ever wanted to have from him, forget about his pride before it's too late, before he regrets.

The dagger is a precious gift to him. It will do for now. It's good enough to swap his love with - but only because it's Rin.

Their faces are only an inch apart, maybe less. Haru can feel the hot breath of Rin, blowing on his eyelids.

"Can I kiss you?" He asks. The tip of his lips is burning at the thought and yet he waits for Rin's approval. He wants this moment to be right, because it'll be the very first time that he'd give himself to Rin entirely, heart body and soul.

"Ah, you haven't understood a single thing I said, hn?"

Rin caresses his face, and runs his dried lips on the skin of his jaw. His mouth rests on his ear.

"When I am with you I want to be just Rin. Nothing applies to you when it's just the two of us. You don't have to wait for my touch. You never had to."

Rin then takes Haru's hands in his, and places them on both sides of his face. He looks at him with ruby eyes shining in the night, and at this moment Haru realizes how much of a fool he had been in the past. Rin never wanted him to break the rules, because there were never rules to be broken. He had done everything to make their relationship look normal in this place, bypassing their status and Haru had done nothing but played along the Palace's rules.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He hushes, his face closer to the face he loves than it has been for days.

"I thought I didn't need to."

"You're a fool."

"I plead guilty."

Rin is smiling when Haru finally kisses him. He lingers there, far too long for their average kiss; but it's been so long, Haru would want their lips to be sealed forever - he would give everything he has for them to stay together forever. But he doesn't own a thing, except for his own dagger; he has nothing to give back.

Rin rests his forehead on Haru's when he breaks the kiss. "I love you." He says timidly, as if it was the very first time he confessed; and somehow it makes sense because it's indeed the very first time that Haru is free to answer as he pleases.

He lays them on the bed again, stretching Rin's legs so that he could set in between them, and link their hips firmly against each other's. The next time he kisses him it's a whole different kind of kiss; Haru's lips are full of passion and love, of want and desire, and of some sort of gratitude he doesn't really know what do to with. But there a thing that's for sure; and it's that he wants Rin tonight, he wants to love him like any normal lovers would do; because they are just two men in love, and that's the oldest story the world has known.

"I love you too." He murmurs, and then he loses his mind in the wildest of Rin's smile.

* * *

_Two more to come._

_Thanks for reviews and support. It means a lot._


	5. V

_Warning: smut_

_I'm sorry I'm late again for the update but the transfert from ao3 to here is kina awful._

* * *

_With the complicity of the moon, watching over them as if they were its children, two lovers reunite that night._

_._

Haru's hands are feverish, running on Rin's heated body as he undresses him entirely. The curtains are still opened, letting the moonlight reflect on his pale skin. Rin's chest looks like an ancient sculpture, a work of art freed from flaws and tonight Haru knows this perfection of Mother Nature will be his and his alone; and the thought blows up his mind every time he gets a sigh of content from Rin's lips. His mouth, wanting, starving, sucks on the crook of Rin's neck. He moans; and his final piece of clothing falls on the floor.

"How do you want me tonight?" Haru asks him, as his mouth finds the courage to leave the delightful taste lingering on Rin's skin.

"Haru...I told you, don't talk to me like if I was the Prince I just-"

"What if I feel like talking like that?"

Haru swears he saw Rin's pupils dilate at his statement. He knows Rin like the back of his hand. He knows what he likes and what arouse him deep inside, even the things Rin won't admit even to himself.

The Prince hisses. "I can't believe you."

"How do you want me tonight, _Rin_?" He repeats, breathes, soughs sensually into his ear, in order to make his lover shiver from desire alone the same way Rin's touches make him every time. Haru can feel his whole body trembling; being so close to the object of his love and lust he hasn't melt with in ages is almost too much to bear. He feels at the verge of losing consciousness as soon as he casts a look at Rin, or when he kisses him, or when Rin strokes his fingernails slightly on the sensitive skin of his lower back. Haru is hard already; his palms are wet against Rin's torso and travel down his hips to rest there, waiting for Rin to give his order.

The wait is killing him. Rin is killing him, slowly.

"I want everything." He says at last, when Haru licks on the side of his neck, tasting the pearls of sweat that had formed there. "I want everything you can give me. I'll take it all." 

* * *

**The Favorite - Chapter Five.**

* * *

Rin then takes his chin between his finger, leaning Haru's head toward his lips and they kiss, passionately. Rin licks Haru's full lips, and then inside him; his tongue slides on Haru's as his fingers get lost in black disheveled bangs.

"Haru," He whispers as after he breaks the kiss, "Haru I love you so much." The grip on Haru's hair got rougher, more painful and Rin drags their lips together again, nibbling on the sensitive skin with his sharp teeth.

"Turn around." He says into his mouth; and Haru obeys.

As he tears himself away from Rin's embrace, Haru hears him moving under the sheet. Rin gets on his knees and closes his arms around Haru's waist, bringing his back close to his chest. He sits on his heels. Haru could feel his length, fully erect, finding its way between his cheeks.

Haru arcs his back and spreads his legs, trying to find a better balance and then, quicker than he expected Rin drags him even closer to him, his mouth covering his earlobe and sucking on it. His hands support his chest and his fingers soon enough get busy with Haru's nipples.

He closes his eyes, they both do; and they let pleasure submerges them.

Haru rocks his hips backward, seizing Rin with his ass; he could feel him panting in his ear as he does so, and every time his behind crushes on Rin's stomach his breathing gets more laborious. His mouth is hot against his neck. Rin bites him there; and Haru can't help but sigh in delight.

As he opens his mouth Rin takes the opportunity to plunge three fingers inside. Haru doesn't have to be told so to lick and suck on them eagerly. The fingernails scratch under his tongue. He can already feel Rin licking on the small of his back - he halts in his rocking, and waits for Rin to enter him.

This is going too fast. But it's not like they can slow down, or even want to.

"Have you touched yourself?" Rin asks him as his forefinger travels don't his spine, his nail leaving a red trace on the pale skin.

"Not in there." Haru breathes. His head falls on Rin's shoulder, not having the strength to stay upright, not with how hot Rin makes him feel, not when he feels his finger entering him slowly. Finally. He spreads his legs wider.

"I kept it tight just for you."

He can feel Rin's body shiver and yet he chooses to roll his eyes. "Haru I told you not-"

"I'm just stating the truth."

Their eyes lock, and even hidden behind the curtain Haru can see how dark Rin's are - probably just as much as his own. It's terrible, almost tragic, to think how much he wants him, needs him, in every way that exists. It's terrible because it's probably the very last time that Haru will have the chance to be with Rin like he yearns to.

A second finger joins the first one and Rin starts to pump in and out roughly. It's enough to make him forget about the dread he feels that turns his stomach upside down, and when finally Rin is in him and starts to move, Haru opens his eyes to another world.

Rin holds him close against him as he contracts his thighs and fucks him from behind; and when he can't bear it anymore, he lies Haru on his stomach and takes a firm grip on his hips. Soon enough Haru feels overwhelmed by the friction inside him and the one of the sheets where he lies. Rin bends, his hot breath running past his ear. He sucks on his earlobe again. His hand travels down his side and when it takes a firm hold on Haru's cock he can't help but moan.

He comes in the palm of Rin's hand, and shortly after Rin joins him in a strangled cry.

They can't risk being heard when the guards are outside the room, not aware of Haru's presence since he has outstepped in Rin's private room. He'll be killed if they find out.

Rin rests on Haru's back, their heads collide. He searches for Haru's hand and takes it in his. Neither of them are in a state to speak, but the strength that Rin uses to hold him speaks louder than any words he could have found. As Haru has never been the one to talk anyway, he doesn't mind the silence, or any kind of non-verbal communication since they are so bad at that. He drags their joined hands closer to his face, and drops a sweet kiss on each of Rin's fingers entwined in his.

Haru could stay like that for an eternity. Just feeling the weight of Rin's still panting body on top of him, crushing him on the mattress, would certainly be enough for him to be happy.

Yeah, it'd totally be enough.

Why can't they have that?

He grasps Rin's hand harder; as if it would prevent him from crying.

"Hey..." Rin says, his mouth on his hair. He kisses the top of his head, then his chin, and when he realizes he can really go any further into Haru's face - for the stubborn man he is tries to hide it in the sheets - Rin's lips come back to the back of his neck. The kisses are soft, suave. "Don't think I'm done with you yet."

And Haru can feel the curve of Rin's mouth, smiling, against his back; and so he smiles as well.

Something wet and strong licks on his spine; Rin puts his hands on each of Haru's sides delicately and travels down his back. Rin's tongue follow the bony path, sending goose bumps as he strokes the sensitive skin on the top of Haru's hips, and then it stops at the start of rear where the flesh parts into two. It stills, just like Haru's breath, trapped in his throat. He wants Rin to continue. He wants to feel his tongue inside him, cleaning him from his own release; he wants it so much that the anticipation makes him hard again, and Haru arcs his back to make Rin know.

His face is still hidden in the sheets. Rin comes slowly to his entrance and sucks on his entrance. His tongue enters him, carefully, not to hurt him after what they'd done. It runs on the aching flesh and then to Haru's great sorrow, Rin retires and moves to his front. He swallows the cum that remains on Haru, with such a dedication and care, it's as if he was trying to heal him, to purify him from his presence and intrusion.

Haru could die at this very moment. Feeling Rin's hot breath against his hole again is something amazing, but it doesn't last as long as he would have wished.

"Turn around." Rin orders again; and yet Haru hesitates - he isn't quite sure of what runs in Rin's mind at that point but he knows that he isn't ready for a second round right now.

"I said I wanted all of you, Haru. Turn around."

His hands are hasty on Haru's hips, pushing on them to put him on his back faster. Rin's hands still caress him, his thighs and butt, and Haru puts his on Rin's head when he takes him in his mouth. It doesn't sound like Rin taking it all; it feels like Rin is giving _him_ all, and Haru gives in, and his head ruffs against the sheets as he loses his mind once more, maybe the last, in the bliss that causes Rin in him.

Too soon Rin's mouth leaves him, and Haru feels toyed with; the loss and the cold air are biting on his sensitive flesh, and makes him ache in not only in a physical way. They are still high from the previous orgasm and Haru is close again, so close; he hasn't really got enough time to recover and with Rin on top of him, magnificent as the burning sun tainting their skin, Haru isn't sure of how long he will last.

Their lips collide. Rin bites on his lower lip, caressing his neck and his jaw, and then up to his hair. The painted nails scratch on his skull; Haru whimpers in delight. It's not usual for him to be so passive, but the way Rin touches him tonight is stunning and somehow the outburst of feelings and pleasure running under his skin prevents his arms from moving, from loving Rin the way he usually does.

Rin is still on top when he straightens his body, and takes a firm hold of Haru's length, guiding it inside him. Rin rides him desperately, even recklessly; he should at least have a short preparation before he made Haru entered him so quickly - though Haru doesn't mind the tightness, on the contrary.

He won't let Rin do all the work; Haru's a proud and wild man, after all. Rin rocks his hips, with an arm supporting him and the other holding Haru's waist, and Haru uses this very arm as a counterbalance and he makes their groins join, with every single one of his thrusts.

Once their pace becomes erratic Haru wonders, as his mind starts to get dizzy, if what drives him crazy the most is the feeling of Rin around him or the sight of his face, distorted in pure bliss, a bliss that's only caused by him and him alone, and the deep and inalienable knowledge that he will always be the only one to bring Rin so close to paroxysmal state of pure happiness.

They both come at the same time - well, Haru'd like to think, but in truth he was too transported to have noticed - in deep, content sighs. Rin falls on his chest with his head resting just under Haru's, his hair tickling the point on his chin, his hot and quick breath blowing in the crook of his neck.

And just like that, like a magic spell or something absurd, against all odds and in spite of him being a mere slave, Haru feels like the true King of the world with his love one resting, breathing at the rhythm of their heartbeats, just against his chest. If he had to choose a single memory, the one he cherishes above all, the only one to remember for his next life it would probably be this one. The sight of Rin on him, the feeling of their heats against his skin, that strange and weird sensation of floating in his own body after having reach his acme twice in a row.

Drapped in the strong scent of sex and of the spicy incense Rin keeps at night in his room, Haru's eyes start to quaver, the heaviness of sleep gaining his muscle and resolve to love Rin all night long. It doesn't help that he catches Rin yawning - and so, he yawns too - but the Prince seems to be more playful than him tonight, and Haru had almost forgotten that from the two of them he isn't the only one to possess a stubborn mind.

"Let's cuddle." Rin says as his arms hold Haru in a warm and cozy kind of embrace. He only mumbles something unintelligible for a response, and wraps his arms on the small of Rin's back.

"I'm not-" Rin yawns again"-done with you wait. Just you wait."

"Ah ah."

They're both beyond exhaustion but, like two spoiled kids during a sleepover none of them want to fall asleep first. They fight against tiredness, but in the end Rin has to give in, and it's with a content smile that Haru gives in as well, knowing that he'll have something to make Rin upset with when he wakes him up.

The state of awakening is only ephemeral, as is everything the world; and with these kind of thoughts Haru peacefully falls asleep.

But at least if their lives can't last, their love will be eternal.

* * *

"You should probably go back to your room."

"Ah..."

In the cold nearly ended night two lovers lazily lay in bed, their limbs entwined. After hearing Rin's words Haru doesn't move though; the words Rin murmured into his ear are way too sweet for him to get away from his comfortable lap. On top of that his body is way too tired, for having loved Rin too much last night; every single muscle on his back and hips is painfully reminding him of their presence every time he tries to move his limbs. He wants to stay there a little bit more longer with his skin resting against Rin's naked body. He doesn't know when he would be able to enjoy the feeling he treasures above all again.

Today is the very last day of January. In two days Rin will be twenty. In two days Rin will be married, and the person he would spend the rest of his nights with would not be him but the Bride.

And it's with these kind of nasty thoughts that Haru walks back, reluctantly, to his room where Nagisa is probably waiting for him, anxious about his sudden disappearing. The sun isn't even up yet, and the lack of daylight allows him to hide in a more subtle way the dagger - _his_ dagger - he is now holding on his waist. Haru walks down the white alley illuminated by scattered torches handling on pillars. He stops at the balcony in front on his room.

It used to be Rin's old room, back at the time when he was nothing but an ordinary kid, back at a time when his father was still alive. Haru isn't supposed to know, of course; Rin would have been too embarrassed to confess the considerate attention he gave Haru but Nagisa always seems to know every secrets that live within the Palace's walls.

The balcony isn't facing the city. It gives Haru a great view of the garden instead; it has changed over the years and now the big black tree that had died during one too hot summer is gone - as well as the small Oasis - but still, the scenery stays breathtaking. Haru rests in elbow on the balcony. There are only the singing of the crickets and the cracking of the fire that can be heard in the silence of the night. The temperature is neither cold nor hot.

At this very moment Haru feels utterly content, in a way he has never experienced before.

And it's only then than he realizes it's only because he has confessed his love to Rin that every single cells of his worn out body feels at peace with himself, and with the world around them. If only he had told him sooner...

Haru finally climbs on his bed after the crickets have tired his ears too much; ignoring how cruel and yet surprising life - and, in a way, Rin - will turn out to be.

* * *

In the morning violent knocks wake the two inhabitants of the room abruptly. Nagisa is the first one to get on his feet and thus, he is the one opening the door, slowly, his arms moving in great slothfulness.

"Oh, Rei-chan." He mumbles, his eyes not even fully open yet.

It's only when he hears the name that Haru sits on his bed, and turns his eyes towards the open door. The light coming from outside blinds his sight for maybe a second or two, but then as the view starts to feel unbuzzy again, he can clearly see what's Rei is holding in his hands.

There are his clothes.

Rei is standing in the middle of the room with a huge package and inside there are nothing but things that had once belonged to him. His clothes, his shoes, even his water flask which is now empty and his leather camel's reins.

"This is all yours." The guard says, and then he and Nagisa watch him unwrap all his old stuff all the while smiling at Rin's kindness. After all he had told him the dagger was just a start; it has to be expected, coming from him.

"Thank you." Haru says, honestly; and truth is he has never felt better in his whole life but, that was not all of what Rin has chosen to give him back. Rei is holding an old piece of parchment under his arm. He hands it to Haru, his look quite serious. Haru reads it carefully but most of the letters aren't from his language - he doesn't understand a lot except for his name and Rin's, and a seal at the very end of it.

"It's your contract."

"My what?"

"Your slavery contract." Rei repeats, and then Nagisa gasps and brings his hands to cover his mouth. But Haru doesn't understand what it means, not yet at least.

"This is an official document stating that you're the Prince's possession. The Prince wanted me to give it back to you."

Haru frowns. "What would I do with that kind of thing?"

"Don't you understand?" Nagisa sobs, his hands already hugging Haru in a tight hug.

"It means that you're not a slave anymore. The Prince is setting you free."

It takes Haru some time to realize what does piece of paper being in his possession really implies. The parchment falls on the floor; and so does Haru's consciousness.

* * *

_See you for the last chapter :p_


	6. VI

_Hi everybody._

_I'm just dropping here that this is a last chapter of the story._

_Thank you to everybody who read and even sometimes left a comment, it really gave me joy. I try to answer everybody but, sometimes life gets in the way and I forgot who I replied to and who I didn't. I'm sorry if I didn't, honestly._

_I love you all._

_Not as much as RinHaru but hey._

_Here is the finale._

* * *

.

They walk down to the Palace exit through the front door. Nagisa stops there, on the steps; he isn't allowed to go any further. Tears of sadness and joy entwined are falling down his eyes.

"Goodbye," He says, his face buried in Haru's old robe; "I wish you to be happy, so very happy - thank you for everything Haru-chan, thank you I'll never forget you."

It's kind of a shock to bid his farewell to the one who had been living with him for the past three years - and still Haru can't believe it, he cannot acknowledge the fact that he is a free man, that his dream finally came true just a few minutes ago. He's walking on the sand path like a newborn lamb, it seems that he has forgotten how to walk on his own now that Rin isn't owning him.

Rin.

Why did he free him so suddenly?

What is he doing right now?

What is he thinking?

He desperately needs to know.

* * *

**The Favorite - Final Chapter**

* * *

**.**

Haru casts a look behind his back; the Palace is even more intimidating now that he has the chance to watch at him from the outside.

"You can't come back here as you please," Rei tells him when he notices the unsteadiness of his steps. "The people are allowed in the gardens of course but you need a special authorization to come into the Palace. You can also ask for an audience, but the Prince alone decides the moment of the meeting."

"Do you mean I can't stay here?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir."

Rei has suddenly used a very polite vocabulary with him, as if by being free Haru has become nothing but another stranger passing by. The newfound taste of liberty isn't as delightful as he thought it would be.

"But it's my home." Haru says, his voice strangled by the raw emotion he feels. "The Palace is my only home I have nowhere else to go."

Rei looks at him with some concern in his eyes. "Come with me Sir, there is still something you need to get back."

They walk toward the stables, Rei ignoring his last complaint. There are a dozen of purebred Arabs, strong and gleaming; someone probably just took care of them. They walk past the horses and then, waiting for them in front of Haru's very eyes, stands a man next to a sand-colored camel, its loading untouched compared to what it was five years ago.

"Saba!" Haru recognizes his old mount immediately. He runs next to the soldier guarding it, and the tall ginger man in armor hands him the new reins - Haru caresses the animal's head. It seems to recognize him as well and Haru is glad; it's like a part of his old life was back and suddenly the world outside the Palace isn't that scary anymore.

"What does '_Saba_' means?" The soldier asks, as Rei joins them. He shrugs and then, expectantly, looks back at Haru.

"I don't know either," The free man says, "My grandmother used to talk about it a lot when I was younger. I named it after her when she died."

Haru pays attention to every single details of Saba's fur - ignoring the circumspect looks he receives from the other two, and the new guard '_Does it mean his grandmother was called Saba?_' unnecessary comment - and finds out surprisingly that during all those years, he has been very well treated.

As if it surprises him, that kind of behavior, coming from Rin.

Rin...

Is he trying to get rid of him?

"Can I ask you something?" Haru asks, as Rei escorts him to the city. The huge entrance porch is now within sight, surrounded by magnificent flowers and bushes, and even sculptures of some foreign animals that curiously share the same teeth as Rin. Even if he didn't have time to spend the days in the city before, Haru can tell just how much it has grown just by casting a simple look. The people were recovering little by little from the great heatwave that occurred three years ago, and the lack of water and supplies is now probably just a distant bad memory for most of the citizens in the same way their last common colds were.

"Anything." Rei answers him. The guard studies him, as Haru stares at the new buildings and sanded roads he's about to walk on.

"Have you heard about the people from Iwami, who used to live at the frontier?"

Rei frowns when he heard the name of Haru's lost tribe. "I might have. Wasn't it that city which had been robbed and massacred a few years ago?"

"That's where I come from."

"O-oh I-I-I'm so-"

"It's okay." Haru says calmly. "I was there. I saw what happened. And it's not like it was your fault, you don't have to be sorry for anything."

Half of the village had been slaughtered that day, and Haru had been lucky to stay alive - he knew that, way too much. But if only half of them had been killed, that also implies that half of them are still alive, somewhere.

"I've heard migrants came here during the heatwave; because of the proximity of the Palace it was easier to find water in the big city. There might be someone from the street that might be able to answer your inquiries - her name is Amaya, she is a dancer and knows most of the population here. The local guards always talk about her and her impressive knowledge of the population."

"Thank you." Haru says. They stop their steps.

They have reached the porch now.

Rei couldn't go any further than that.

The last chain of slavery falls on the floor; Haru takes a step into the outside world for the first time in five years and by doing so he starts to write an entire new part of his life.

"Well then, I bid you farewell, Nanase Haruka."

Haru turns on his heels at the speed of light; he hasn't heard his full name in ages - how could he-

"It was written on your contract. I couldn't help but have a look...excuse me, Nanase-san."

The guard blows, saluting him just like the first time he met he and Nagisa in Rin's old room. This time, his movements look more convinced, thoughtfully executed, and when he finally sets back upright Rei has some tears licking from the corner of his eyes.

Haru witnesses, dumbfounded, as the guard sweeps them away behind his red spectacles.

"Excuse me Sir...but Nagisa-kun told me all about you..." He sobs, and Haru can't help but smile as he hears Nagisa being called that way, "He told me about you and the Prince and...what he did...what it gave back to you - it's probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

As far as he can remember, from the moment he had been caught by the robbers in Iwami Haru has always wanted nothing more but to be free. As days, weeks, months and years had passed he had longed for nothing more but that. Haru wanted his freedom back. He wanted to regain his honor and to be considered a man. Those five years had been far from grueling thanks to his relationship with the Prince but the comfort he had been given all this time couldn't possibly compare to the feeling of freedom, growing on his back and giving him wings.

Haru feels like he could fly. He feels like the whole world was opened to him; no places, no gardens no rooms were forbidden to him anymore. He could go wherever he wants whenever he wants.

Except, maybe, within the Palace's walls.

"Farewell, Ryuugazaki Rei."

Haru bends as well, and then he turns around, his back to the white and imposing building that had been his home for so long.

He could almost feel burning red eyes staring at the back of his neck from the Prince's bedroom. Haru fights the urge to check if his intuition was right. That was not something he could have handle anyway.

Because then he would remember that even if he was free, the sole and only place where he would eventually want to end his days is still out of his reach. What was it that Rin told him, just the night before? Ah, that's right. You don't need to be a slave to feel trapped in a cage. Freedom is just some kind of illusion men give themselves to cope with their condition.

There is a huge gap between the concept of being free and the reality of it.

Nevertheless, Rin gave him everything he needed. He made him leave. That way, Haru will never have to see them, Rin and the Bride, the man he loves and his replacement, walking through the gardens hand in hand, with the whole court praising them, as well as the round belly that would soon be seen under the white robes of the Bride.

The sight would have probably end him.

And Rin didn't want that. Rin loves him, he really does, that's why he had no other solution than to make him free, to deliver Haru from his own grip; being apart from each other was the only way for Haru to heal.

And that was indeed the most beautiful gift Rin could have given to him.

* * *

After a few hours of wandering, Haru eventually found the so famous Amaya everybody talked about.

Indeed, the kind woman told him there was a few survivors of Iwami who had settled here after the attack. One of them was an old soldier, with dyed blond hair - something that had to do with sorcery she told him, or new sciences from the Occident - and a scar, the form of a star, on the side of his skull. The man was called Sasabe Goro, he owned an establishment called 'Iwami Returns' and was selling 'stuffs'.

She asked him then if he was feeling alright, and if he wanted to stay for the night - he politely declined, and she patted him on the back. Did he really look that bad?

It was horrible to be so far away from Rin. To know that he will never be able to see him, to talk to him to touch him like he used to - like he yearns to. If people wandering by him were asked they would certainly never guess that the sad man with bright blue eyes walking with a camel just next to them had just been set free by the Prince. Because somehow, Haru realized in horror, he still felt trapped. He is still trapped and bound to Rin by his feelings for him.

Now, Haru stands in front of the shop where the last Iwamis were supposed to live. The place looks very much like a bazar - they were jewels, clothes, ceramics, and a gorgeous white and blue tunic at the very end of the shop. Strangely they were no one inside when Haru enters the room and pushed by his newfound wings, he takes the liberty to look around a little while waiting for someone to come in.

He didn't have to wait very long though. A few minutes later, the sound of a broken glass alarms him of the presence of a new incomer.

"Ha...Ha-Ha...Ha- is that-Oh my-"

"...Makoto!?"

And there in front of him, hands shaking and eyes already wet, stands Makoto Tachibana, his very best friend, the one he had spent his childhood with, the one he thought he had definitely lost five years from now.

"I thought you were-"

But his friend never lets him the opportunity to finish his sentence; the next moment Haru's feet are leaving the solid ground and the only thing he knows, is that Makoto's heart is beating fast in his chest, that his cheeks are wet and that he is, as well as himself, alive; and that's the only thing that matters.

* * *

They weren't given a lot of time to cheer up and make up for lost time though; as soon as Goro Sasabe came back from his errands Makoto had to work again, and having nothing else to do Haru helped him in his task. Ren and Ran are there as well, and the four of them are now busy embroidering a very refined piece of clothes, made of white silk and golden motives - even if Ren felt offended as a man to do a woman's duty, Makoto and Haru got on with it pretty well. Haru's job is to make small patterns of a very cute blue flowers. Ran told him they were called forget-me-nots; and that the name came from a legend from a faraway land, where a knight fell in a river as he was picking flowers for his fiancée. As the stream got him farther from his love, he threw the flowers he'd just cut towards her, and yelled _'Forget me not!' - _what a silly idea.

When Haru asks where he could find some of those, everybody laugh at him.

"In Germany, perhaps." Makoto says kindly.

"What is it?"

"A place in Europe." Sasabe tells him.

Haru has never felt so very ignorant in his life.

* * *

"Hot! Hot!"

Sasabe comes out of the kitchen with a steaming meal and hot couscous. They all eat together in what Haru would have called the scullery, and even if it's probably not the best tagine he has ever eaten in his life, this is far from being an unpleasant meal. Everything is lively and joyful. Having found Makoto and his siblings again had made his heart go lighter and warmer.

It's not enough to make him forget about Rin's absence though; or about the others who hadn't survived.

Haru watches the twins beg for their brother to stay longer with him. They're still afraid of being alone in the dark.

"When you were in the public bathrooms the robbers came into our house," Makoto tells him as they drink their tea outside the shop when they're finally alone. "They cut our mother's throat in front of their eyes. My father yelled and I took them with me. I wasn't really thinking and I ran as far as I could, I took the first mean of transport I found and we were able to escape. I only came back days after when the slave merchants were gone. I buried their corpses and...I buried your parents' as well."

The news isn't what Haru would called surprising; but still he finds it hard to ignore how much his eyes are burning him right now.

"Thanks to the twins people helped us a lot. We moved here during the heatwave and found old man Sasabe here. He took us with him on one condition; we had to work for free. But he gave us a roof under which we could sleep and two warm meals every day, so I told him we weren't doing it for free in the end. He is a nice guy. He knew our fathers."

They take a slip of their tea silently. Under the moonlight Haru finds himself missing the singing of the crickets. As Makoto doesn't add anything for the time being, Haru is tempted to go for a walk around the city to take a look at the Palace again. The legend Ran told them this evening is still racing in his mind. He wants nothing more than to draw Rin's some flowers and to shout their names as he'll throw his drawing on the balcony, before he leaves the place for good.

Why does it frighten him so much that Rin could forget about him?

"And for you? What happened?" Makoto asks, eventually.

"I was made prisoner. I was bought by the Prince as a slave. I stayed there for 5 years."

It almost makes Makoto spit out his beverage. "What?! But it's horrible! What happened? Did they treat you well? How did you escape?!"

"I didn't," Haru tells him, "Ri-_The Prince _set me free."

"The Prince did what?"

"He set me free." Haru repeats calmly.

Except that it's not true. Haru is everything but free at the moment.

Makoto looks utterly dumbfounded at Haru's statement, but as soon as he opens his mouth to ask for more details they hear a loud bang coming from the shop. They hurry inside. Sasabe is there with the robe they have worked on so hard in his hands, saved from a more than regrettable fall. Its rack is lying on the floor.

Makoto sighs is so loud that it manages to pick Haru's curiosity over the wonderful piece of fabric. And so he asks. And then he regrets.

It's the wedding robe for the Bride.

"Makoto I think the twins are waiting for you."

"Ah, okay. I'll see you tomorrow then. Haru..."

Makoto tries to catch his gaze but Haru's is stuck on the white robe the old man holds.

"...I'm really glad you're okay." He breathes, and then he disappears upstairs to take care of his siblings. It leaves only Haru, Sasabe and...

The Bride.

When did fate turn up to be so merciless? Even far away from the Palace, from Rin and from the wedding, the Bride is still lurking him, following him and reminding Haru of her suffocating presence. The same presence that had ruined Haru's life. The same presence that is maybe the reason why he is a free man tonight.

"Haruka, help me, would you?"

"What?" Haru snaps abruptly.

"We need to put it back on the rack. The Prince will kill us all if there is a single fold on his Bride's robe."

His fingers are shaking as he touches the fabric. They haven't been when he has embroidered it only hours ago but now everything is different. Haru touches the robe as if it were fragile and dangerous, as if it were something he hates but admires at the same time, as if he knew he didn't have the right to touch it but did anyway. Under his fingertips he can feel all the details, the quality of the raw materials, the refinement of the pattern - this robe is a pure work of art. Its blue and gold colors contrast with the whiteness of the silk.

The Bride will be beautiful, without a single doubt. And Rin will probably look even more stunning.

Suddenly Haru's sight starts to get blurred and it's only then that he realizes he's crying. The owner of the shop looks at him with a warm smile.

"I've heard about you, you know."

"Hn?" He mumbles, and dries his eyes.

"I made some delivery at the Palace. Makoto often comes with me too. I thought it'd be okay to interrupt your discussion earlier - you don't mind that?"

"No, of course not."

His reunion with Makoto and his siblings had been emotionally intense enough for both of them; Makoto probably didn't need to be told everything Haru had been through - and that he was madly in love with the Prince, on top of that; in fact Haru especially wanted to avoid talking about that very detail.

He looks back at the dress again. He still doesn't know if he would rather destroy it or wear it during the night.

"Mah, it's no use to talk about the past, is it? What's done is done." Sasabe pats his shoulder and then, takes a thin mattress which he lays on the floor. "You'll need a good night of sleep. I'm sorry I have nothing more to offer at the moment, but it'll only be temporary, right?"

Sasabe winks at him but again, but Haru's eyes are glued too much on the robe to notice.

He doesn't even realize he's gone before he goes to sleep.

Only one day left.

* * *

Haru slept very little that night.

He had trouble falling asleep. The gleaming coming from the moon reflects on the golden laces, the golden belt. He doesn't know why but he is facing the robe again, completely hypnotized by it - it's exactly the same thing as staring at Rin, it's not something he has control of; just like the fact that the simple mention of the Prince's name is enough to make his heart beat faster in his chest - and when Sasabe comes down from his room it's only to find Haru still staring at it, intensely.

Makoto joins them for breakfast. The twins are still sleeping peacefully - it's barely sunset yet.

"When do we have to deliver the whole thing?"

"Before noon." Sasabe answers Makoto request, and takes another Makrout in his mouth.

"It's finally time. The Prince sure took long enough. He almost reached the limit; I really wonder what took him so long."

"He was maybe making sure that it was the good one, who knows?" Sasabe says.

"He had two years for that."

"Well you know it doesn't work like that, they are some _conditions_-"

"What are you two talking about?"

Haru finds himself listening to their conversation in spite of his reticence. As soon as Rin's marriage has been put on the table he has felt his stomach turning upside down and hasn't been able to eat something decent.

"Well," Makoto starts, his eyes curious on him, "You were at the Palace all this time; you should probably know better than us what is happening down there, don't you?"

His statement should be true, except that it's not, it's even far from that. Haru doesn't know about Rin's wedding because of multiple reason; the first one being that the other gossipers hated him too much to share any useful information with him and secondly, because he has never really wanted to know. Even Nagisa didn't...wait, what did Nagisa say already?

"Ah, it's a matter of tradition here; it's okay not to know. I guess they didn't tell you a lot about that in the brothel, right Haruka?"

"The _brothel_?!"

"Makoto, it's alright." He sends daggers to the old man. That's why he didn't want to talk about his past at the Palace. Haru knew it would eventually end with Makoto feeling sick worried and horrified and then, Haru would have to explain how in fact it has probably been the most happiest days of his life...

And now, all those precious memories belong to the past.

"Tell me about what?" Haru goes on. "The Prince's marriage?"

"Traditions." Sasabe corrects him. "But sure the Prince's marital union is part of it."

He takes a large mouthful of black coffee - too black and sour coffee - and then, the old man starts to tell him about the local traditions Haru has always neglected to learn about.

"Here, there is the custom about the wedding of the Prince. The coronation must imperatively take place the day after the twentieth birthday of the Prince and in such regards, he must find a Bride before that time. If he hasn't find one that suits his taste before the baneful date of his twentieth anniversary, the Council then must find a Bride for him."

"So this is someone who had been imposed to him? The Bride? The one you're making that beautiful dress for?" Haru asks bitterly.

"Actually, no," Makoto says, "And it's rather weird if you'd ask me because we got the order for the robe almost two years ago."

"What?"

Haru feels like throwing up. It doesn't make any sense. His thoughts are fuzzing, not really understanding what's happening, what their words mean - Rin had ordered the dress two years ago? But he was still -_ they_ were still - did Rin - why did -

"And the only thing we were told at that time were the mensuration of the Bride and the colors of his eyes." Makoto goes on.

"Yeah, that was so romantic."

"What did he say?"

The helplessness in his voice alarms his two hosts, and then both look back at him with a confused look on their face.

"About the eyes." Haru's are already wet, memories of their very first meeting rushing everywhere in his mind. "What did he say?"

After a while, Sasabe smiles.

"He said the Bride has very pretty blue eyes, as clear as water."

Haru feels as all the air he has kept in his lungs exploded, and climb up to his throat, forbidding him to talk, or to breathe. His legs give up, and he ends up on his knees first and then, as his muscles refuse to obey him one by one, his body falls on the floor. He wants to scream. He wants to roll on the ground and be swallowed into the earth, never to reappear again.

Rin...

_Rin!_

Has he wanted to marry him for so long? For two long years?

Is everything screwed up now that Haru has left the Palade and is not allowed within its wall? Is that too late for that dream to become his again?

How can life be so unfair to one single human being!?

"This..." He chokes, between hard sobs, "This isn't possible. Why didn't he tell me? Why did he never ask?"

Makoto has knelt right next to his best friend, not understanding, not knowing what to do in front of such distress.

"Haru...you..."

"Well, they are some conditions that make it impossible for the Prince to propose to you, I assume."

Sasabe came to his side as well, his hands resting on his knees.

"I know." Haru mutters, ignoring Makoto's inquiring gaze, ignoring the tears that are falling down his eyes. "I'm a slave. I'm less than a human how could Rin marry such a thing?"

"But, Haru, you're not-"

"Nanase Haruka." The old man says, his voice loud and grave, "Stand up."

But Haru feels like all the strength he has left has abandoned him the moment he learned the truth behind Rin's intentions. He seeks for Makoto's help, and his friend lends him a hand - and his arms, his shoulders, his support - and miraculously despite his awful state, he manages to get on his feet.

"I'll only ask you this once," Sasabe states when Haru eventually finds his balance, "Are you a slave?"

And then, he realizes.

There is only one answer to that question; and even if Haru still feels like he is bound to Rin there is something that he no longer is.

Haru is not a slave anymore.

Haru is a free man.

Haru is now worthy to be married.

He leans further into Makoto's lap, his force leaving him but this time for an entire other reason. His heart has never felt lighter in his whole life. His body, his soul, everything is now floating in the air, transported by the new wings Rin gave him the day before and from where he flies he could see the Palace, he could see Rin's room and its balcony and if he closes his eyes, he can hear it, the singing of the crickets, the cracking of the fire coming from the torch, the guards' footsteps walking in sync on the sanded path. It's no longer the feeling of freedom that guides his steps; it's the rhythm of his beating heart again and the adoration he knows Rin still has for him that take control over his life.

"There is one other condition for the Prince to marry someone." Sasabe 's voice echoes from far, far away and brings Haru's back to the solid ground, regretfully.

"What is it?" He asks, eager to know, more than ever. "What do I have to do?"

"Well, the Prince has to court you first."

"What?" The two best friends speak, at the same time.

"It is customary not to talk, or do anything to the Prince without him having act first; well this rule has an exception when it concerns marriage. You see, the Prince cannot by any means propose to someone who has not manifest any interest in him previously - they need to confess their love first. You see it comes from a very old story, the 8th King of History was very ugly and he got turned down so many times that the shame was..."

But the old man never finds the need to finish his pointless silly little story.

Haruka is crying tears, of joy and relief; maybe some were of anger towards the Prince who had probably hid all those information, all his schemes away but in the end, it doesn't matter. Because as soon as he had seen him in his shop Goro Sasabe knew it was the man he had made the robe for.

Makoto was holding the former slave, his old friend, so tightly in his arms - he has probably started crying as well, the man is so sensitive - and it's with an ounce of regret that he finds him forced to end their touching embrace.

"Haruka, I have one last thing to ask you."

Haruka lifts his head from Makoto's shoulder, showing that in spite of the rollercoaster of emotion he has been through in such a short amount of time, he is still all ears.

"What are you still doing here?"

There is something that shines brighter in the depth of those blue eyes. Haruka had returned from his trip to Hell, then to Heaven. Now, his mind is solidly walking upon the earth and there is one last place he needs to go to give this fairy tale the happy ending it deserves.

The former slave looks at his friend, as if silently asking for permission - advice - acceptance. Makoto smiles from ear to ear, small drops of salty water are falling on his sharp cheeks.

"I'll see you at the delivery." He says then.

The former slave smiles as well, but his cheeks are freed from tears. He casts one last look at the robe inside the shop, and then he blows to the old man who had sewn it for him. One instant later he's running out of their sight just like an elegant gazelle hunting its pray.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the Bride was gone.

* * *

When Haru finally reaches the Palace again his breath comes out in short cut. He has run so fast without thinking that he actually needs to stop to rest for a minute or two; but his body is only responding to the fast beating of his heart bounding in his chest, and soon he starts running again. He won't stop, not until he sees Rin, not until he tells him just how much he loves him.

He just hopes, from the bottom of his heart, that it's not too late.

But he still has a day, right? Rin won't be twenty until tomorrow. The Council cannot force him to marry someone else when Haru was now free. He won't let that happen.

He reaches the entrance, where guards are standing and forbidding him to overstep. It's on these very steps that Nagisa said farewell to him. He can't imagine it was only a day ago - so much happened to him in the short time of a day, Haru feels like he'd lived twenty years of his life since he left the Palace. And yet he has never felt so young.

"You're okay?" A man asked him, and gives him some water. He's not a stranger, Haru notices; he is part of Rin's court, he has seen him more than once striding along the Palace's alleys.

But it's not only that. Those eyes, those blue-lagoon eyes...he had seen them before. He just can't remember where. Haru doesn't have the chance to ask the man if they have already met however, because when he's finished with the flask of water the stranger is already gone. Haru stands quite bemused in the middle of the principal alley; and then he remembers why he's here and of the short time he has ahead of him, and starts running again.

He can't believe how much the Palace has changed since he's gone. The few people he runs into never meet his eyes. Coming from the other side of the door makes it very hard for him to find his landmark. He messes up the direction all the time, never turning right or left when he should have and it's only maybe half an hour after entering the Palace that Haru find himself in the gardens at last.

The only place where he's allowed to be.

There is no doubt that Rin will be there. He just knows it. It can't be otherwise.

From the corner of his eyes Haru can see a long, dark cape facing him, standing where the white camellias are planted. The man has his hair made with a white piece of cloth and some jewels, tied on the side of the headdress. Deep red bands are falling on the back of his neck.

Rin turns around, a white camellia trapped in his hand. He smiles as soon as his eyes fall on Haru's slender silhouette.

"You took your time." He says nonchalantly. As if the whole situation was just common. As if the couple of days they have just lived weren't out of the ordinary. Rin's smile even grows wider, somehow in an amused and arrogant way that suit him so well, and he just waits for Haru to reach him.

As for Haru, his feet are glued to the ground. It's not that he doesn't want to see Rin, to run into his arms or to hug him, to kiss him and love him on the white camellia field, to hold him so close to his heart that he would never be able to leave it; Haru wants all of that. But paradoxically he also wants to shout at him, to punch him, to wrestle with him on the white camellia field, to cry on his face and to ask him why; why did he have to make things so complicated?

"You look upset." Rin is still standing where Haru found him, his fingers playing with the white flower and its stem. "I thought freedom would suit you better. You have always been so difficult to handle."

"Why?"

The stem stops swirling into Rin's grip as soon as Haru's plea reaches his ears. The Prince looks away from him, as if he didn't know where to start, as if he wasn't sure about what to say - what Haru wants to hear - how much he already knows.

"I...It's, you won't understand anyway. I just, needed to know first."

"Know what?"

"If you loved me."

"I told you I did!"

"And look how difficult it was for me to get that from you! That's why I knew you wouldn't understand. I needed to _know_."

Their voices get passionate, their bodies start to tense; Haru tries again to catch Rin's gaze, afraid that he might have realized what all this really implied.

"You...you didn't trust me? That's why you freed me? Because you thought I was lying?"

"Everybody lies to me Haru, and-" He stops, as he caught Haru's fist turning curling on themselves and the rage, burning inside his usually calm blue eyes, distorting his face like it never did before. "No I, it was all planned, long ago I've always wanted to get your freedom back, for a very long time Haru I swear. It...why is that always so complicated when it comes to you?"

There's a little bench, made of white marble just like the rest of the Palace, where Rin sits as he collects his thoughts. Things haven't changed that much, Haru realizes as he studies Rin and his features. He still looks very lonely. He still looks very lost.

Haru had been a slave, but he had never been alone. He'd always had people to count on. His family back in Iwami, Nagisa and Rin here at the Palace, and even when he thought he would be alone in a city he didn't know, Rei helped him, the dancer helped him, and he had found Makoto and this fact alone is a real miracle. Haru feels as lucky as a man who'd have traveled a lifetime in the desert always finding on his route an Oasis or a generous man with a flask full of water to quench his thirst.

As for Rin, he probably had an easier path, he has probably never felt the blaze of sand burning the sole of his feet; but he lives every day of his life wondering if the flask he is being handed isn't another sly attempt to murder him in disguise.

"How long has it been, five years? Yeah it was five years ago, Sousuke bought you for my fifteen birthday after all."

"Is that the man with large shoulders and severe clear eyes?" Haru asks. It has to be him anyway. Now, Haru remembers where he had seen him before. It was in the desert, in his cell the day after he'd been captured. His white shall had covered his hair, his face, but not his eyes.

"He told me he saw you coming. He's the one who warned me, actually; I've asked everybody to get into their room so we'd be alone. You know, he knows me rather well..." Rin's body relaxes at last, his shoulders fall slightly from their previous posture. "He knew, the moment he saw you, that I'd like you. Though I don't really think he could have imagine how much this turned out to be true."

Haru's feet walk on their own. He stops as his toes brush against the camellias. Somehow it feels like the perfect distance to be away from Rin. Just like in his dream, where his love was surrounded by small, pink petals from an unknown tree; Haru feels like it's too soon yet to reach him.

He's looking at him now. His smile curls into something else again. Maybe it's adoration. Haru hopes it is.

"I fell in love with you, so quickly. And the fall never seemed to end. Every time I looked at you I found something more to love about you, and at the end of every day I went to sleep being a little bit more addicted to you. And then..." This time Rin's smile shows some sign of pain, bitterness, even maybe anger. "Then I turned eighteen, and my mother told it was time to stop fooling around with you. That I needed to look for someone to marry, someone that would fit the function, you see?"

The only thing Haru can see are the tears that shine in Rin's eyes. They don't fall in his face, though; the Prince sighs deeply and then, his speech goes on.

"I was really mad at that time. I wanted to abdicate, I truly did. Not only because of you but; as I grew up I realized that I'll never really have the control over my life, that whatever dreams I could have would always have the second place, that my duties as the future King would come first. I was eighteen, I was young and stupid and in love-"

"You're still young and stupid."

They both laugh quietly. They don't need to be told that he's still in love as well.

"That night, I made a bet with Sousuke." Rin adds when their smiles have died on their lips. "I told him I was going to marry you, no matter what; and that if I lose he could have whatever he wanted - I never thought he would ask for Gou's hand but, whatever - and when my mother heard of it we had a fight. Do you know what I did to upset her even more?"

Rin looks at him expectantly. As if Haru could know, or guess, out of the blue.

Unless...unless it's...

"You ordered the dress." He breathes.

According to the look on Rin's face, he must have been right. "I knew you'd find them."

"So you knew they were from my village?" Haru asks, "That's why you came to them?"

"Yeah; trust me it was not for their sewing capacity. The old man was illegally selling alcohol and nudes behind the market place with two little children when I found him the first time. I didn't really give him the choice."

Silence falls between them. There is no one walking on the marbled alleys, no crickets; only some birds chattered in the gardens, and the wind making the plants shiver as its blows. It's a time Haru needs to put all the pieces he missed into their rightful place, to finish the puzzle that had been his love life with Rin, full of things left unsaid and of misunderstanding. Some pieces are still missing for the picture to be complete.

"Why didn't you tell me before you freed me? Why make me live through that nightmare these past few days? You could just have told me. I would have - you didn't need to, _frustrate_ me-"

"It's the protocol Haru. I've tried to make you talk about it but you always refused to confess I had no other choice than to-"

"You ordered my execution!"

"And look at you you're still alive! I would have never agree on that; because you know you were right that night, I love you too much to be so cruel. I still feel very upset about it...are you mad at me?"

Haru clenches his fist. Of course he is, but it's not the memory of that night that had hurt him the most - those tiny, sync moans of pleasure the night he went to see Rin's room; it's something he will never be able to forget.

"Who was the woman?" Rin raises an eyebrow, so Haru has to explain his mind and the words ache him as they pass his throat. "The woman walking in your steps, the one that was holding your arm, the one...the one you had sex with that night."

Rin frowns, "I told you it was just a girl my mother bought me - to get distracted from you of course but-"

"No no, I don't mean that one." He had forgotten about that one to be honest but it's not like Rin will remember her, or had thought of substituting him with her so it doesn't actually bother him one bit. "The night before I got into your room, when you gave me the dagger."

"...Oh. That must have been Gou."

"...Excuse me?"

"Oh no no. No! That wasn't - I wasn't in my room! It wasn't me you heard - dammit Haru have you ever see me sleeping in an unguarded room?"

Well, no; now that Rin says it the scene had felt quite unreal when Haru had walked to Rin's door.

"My grandmother had...a vision of someone trying to kill me so I had to change room...I let Sousuke with my sister so they could have some time together without my mother knowing...it was just to upset her once more but-"

"Yeah, how _convenient_, an attempt of assassination coming out of _nowhere_-"

"Well she was just one day early, wasn't she?" Rin corrects him; and suddenly Haru can't find his words. His eyes fall on the ground; camellias are actually very pretty flowers - he wonders what's their meaning.

"I was running out of time." Rin says after a short pause, his voice quavering with a kind of internal and immense sadness Haru doesn't know where it comes from. "Every day I was falling more and more in love with you and I could see you loved me too. And yet you refused to give me your approval, you refused to let me court you properly so even if I freed you, what good would it be if I couldn't ask you to be my Bride? You gave me no choice, Haru; I had to force you, I had to make you miserable, to test you, to break you into pieces to see just how much I meant to you. I am really, really sorry it had to come to this."

"It doesn't explain why you didn't tell me."

It could have been so much simple. If only Haru had known all these traditions, if he hadn't been so damn proud and stubborn, if Rin hadn't become so suspicious about everybody than it even shook the trust he had in the one he loved the most, if only they had just _talked_ about it...

But Haru stands in front of Rin, and Rin loves him, and Haru loves him back just as much and they are just, both men; and if he concentrates a little Haru can see the giant pink tree and its petals, floating around Rin's face.

"It's because I wanted you to have the choice." He says. "I wanted you to be a free man first. I was scared that if I told you about this before freeing you, you might make the wrong decision. Because, and it's still the case, at that time I was afraid that you'd love freedom better than me. That you'd agree on marrying me just to escape slavery and not because you really wanted to."

Rin stands up from his seat. He walks towards Haru, and takes his hands in his. They eyes lock.

"Haru, you don't owe me anything, okay?" Rin's grip on his fingers is intense, but also hesitant; he sounds really resolved but at the same time he looks scared and totally destitute. "You don't have to stay here. You can go and live the life you want, wherever you want. You can go back to the city and stay with your people. You can walk on the desert and settle in a new village. Or you can decide to stay here, with me; but I didn't get you freedom so I could marry you. I gave you your freedom back so you can decide what to do with it on your own."

Rin has said a lot of things to him, during all those years. A lot of it is probably full of obscenities and of yelling and Haru loves that part of him that can literally drive Rin crazy. Some of it were words of love. But nothing like this. Nothing like what Rin has just told him.

Rin has given away everything they had just to make sure Haru would make his own happiness pass first. He took the risk to lose him forever but didn't care really, as long as it was Haru's choice, as long as he would be happy, as long as Haru was free.

"You...idiot." Haru joins their forehead, as streams of water run on his cheek. "You're nothing but a fucking_ idiot._"

"Ah ah, I am your Prince, Sir Nanase; and I shall warn you that your insolence isn't tolerated anymore within the Palace walls - or I shall punish you myself, _very severely_."

"Don't be a dick." Rin looks utterly and falsely offended. "To me you're not the Prince. To me you're only Rin. We're the same. We're just two men. I am Haruka Nanase and you, you're just the man I helplessly fell in love with."

Haru stands on tip-toes; his lips moving forward to capture Rin's but the soft skin only falls on the palm of a hand.

"Wait..." Rin mutters something about doing things properly but Haru can't tell; he's too busy laughing about how red Rin's face is. "I need to do something first." And then, Rin releases his hands.

* * *

.

Once upon a time there was a young Prince without a father, who had the heavy task of leading his people during an area of hardship. One day, the Prince saw another young boy, about his age, who had eyes as clear as water and he instantaneously fell in love with him. To win his heart, the Prince did everything he could: he learned everything about the boy first, he gave him a comfortable place to stay, he answered all his requests, he learned how to be the best lover the boy would dream to have; and every single day the Prince simply loved him, without asking anything in return. The boys they were became men. But still, even if he knew he would only love him for the rest of his life, the Prince couldn't make him his Bride, because the man was a slave and because the Prince has doubts about his true feelings. As everything the Prince wanted, more than his own happiness, was the one of the man he loved, he decided to free him. He gave his lover the wings he needed to get out of the Palace and to leave his embrace, even if it meant never to see him again.

Against all odds, the man returned; because he shared the Prince's feelings and had been in love with him all his life, so much that freedom couldn't really taste like it if they weren't together to enjoy it.

Today the two lovers are reunited in the holy silence of the Palace's gardens; with their love so powerful that it has made the time stop, at least for a few moments. The two lovers lovingly stare at each other's eyes, as if their love was eternal, as if nothing could disturb the obviousness of their union;

.

And then, to the former slave's greatest surprise,

.

The Prince kneels.

.

**~~ The Favorite - The End. ~~**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

"And they lived happily ever after."

Haru closed the book and cast a look at his daughter. The small child had fallen asleep it seemed. Her very tiny hands were out of the pink blanket, curled into fists, her red eyes closed to the pale gleaming of the night-light.

He smiled; he turned the light out, kissed her forehead lovingly and exited her sanctuary, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

In her dreams, the little girl could see the white Palace that was her home. She was walking through the garden on Uncle Sousuke's shoulders, who was walking hand in hand with Aunt Gou. They walked to the big cherry blossom that was blooming just for her eyes. And then, under the pink petals, the little girl could see her fathers hidden from the world, peacefully sleeping in each other's arms.

* * *

_I hope you liked it. Thank you to everyone who helped me, my betas, my friends. Thanks to the readers as well. Thank you!_

_It's my first multi chapter ending ever so I feel kinda weird but...hey, everygood things has an end._

_See you soon I hope :)_

_Queenie_


End file.
